Firefly  The Tale of Lady
by The Wise Duck
Summary: An AU Tale.  A Crossover story between Firefly and my own OC Science Fiction universe.  The crew of Serenity find a survivor of a ship shot down by the Alliance.  The survivors mysterious abilities coupled with her loss of memory brings interesting times.
1. Events

Firefly/Serenity and all the characters contained within are the sole property of Fox/Universal

The situations and contents of this story are mine and are intended solely as recreational and for the enjoyment of myself and other fans.

FREESpace and all the characters, terms and concepts are the sole property of The Wise Duck (Kenneth LeDuc).

FREESpace is a work of fiction. All Characters and events portrayed in this story are fictional and any resemblance to real people and events is purely coincidental.

* * *

A/N: Forward:

Thus starts two firsts. My first story outside of Kim Possible Fan Fiction and my first attempt at publishing some of my own original work.

For the Firefly/Serenity fans out there a hopefully quick explanation. My son is a hardcore Firefly fan. He also reads and enjoys my original science fiction universe which I have been working on for almost ten years. About six years ago, just before I actually got into FanFiction, he asked if I could do a crossover story combining the two. I did some thinking and research into Firefly (which I knew next to nothing about) and found (1): Firefly was a very good program which lasted way too short a time, (2): that it abounded in possibilities for fan fiction and (3): it would actually connect in a crossover form very well with my own private universe.

Then I got involved with Fan Fiction, specifically Kim Possible FF and five years and six published stories with something like 500,000 words went by.

When I finished my Kim Possible novel, 'What She Can't Say' and its side story, 'Clothing in on Cuddle Buddies', four and a half years had gone by with nothing but Kim Possible coming out of me. At that time I needed to get back to my own work which had been neglected so long and I explained this to my K.P. readers that although there were still many K.P. stories left in me, this story would have to be done before anything else could happen.

But just like WSCS which when originally envisioned at roughly 130,000 words but ultimately grew to over 395,000 words, this story grew and is continuing to grow all out of proportion to my original thoughts. Not wanting to be away from the writing scene for 4-5 years didn't appeal to me so I decided to break 'The Tale of Lady' down into 'books' and publish it as the books were completed.

So what we have here is Book One.

To my Kim Possible readers, this is what I have been doing for the last two and a half years. My main decision to publish this and risk the wrath of Firefly fans was to allow all you guys to see where I've been, what I've been doing and what it is that has taken me away from the KP world. There is also the egotistical (let's be honest) desire to showcase something of my own creation and see the reaction to it. Hopefully it will be positive and something which I hope you will like.

To the Firefly/Serenity fans, I hope you will allow me to play a while in your world. But there are a couple of things I want to be up front about.

This is most definitely an Alternate Universe Tale. It starts shortly after the final Firefly episode 'Objects in Space' and continues on from there for a considerable amount of time instead of the six months that supposedly passed between 'Objects in Space' and the movie 'Serenity'. So the first fail is that any timeline for the shows canon is shot.

The second is that certain other aspects of canon will also go out of the window. I say that with the understanding that things like that happen and are generally accepted in AU and Crossover stories. That's part of what Fan Fiction is all about. But I also understand that some readers/fans have a very hard time with that. I can only hope that the fact that this is not done maliciously will at least mollify those fans.

One thing about non canon that I will say up front. I both realize and acknowledge that this universe belongs to Joss Whedon and he can do whatever he wants with it and that is canon.

But—

Both myself and my son (who remember is the hardcore Firefly fan) are disinclined to go along with what has been put forward as the history and background of Darrial Book as put forward in 'The Shepherds Tale'. For the purist, please excuse this.

* * *

Firefly: The Tale of Lady

Chapter One – Events

He upended the bottle into the mug, then regarded that empty bottle and all it signified.

At the moment, he had a ship full of drunkards. And he didn't much give a gorram.

But that was going to stop. Now that they were less than two hours out from their destination, he had passed the word that by tomorrow morning at the latest, after they had finally reached their destination, after they had finally dropped off their _taso de_ cargo, after they restocked their empty pantry and reefer, they would be returning to the professional standards that had always marked their operations in the past. The cheer that the crew had given to this pronouncement only served it emphasis the terrible ordeal of the last couple of months.

His ship was a commercial courier, not as fast as some but quicker than most. Prior to this trip, the ship had spent its entire operational lifetime passing back and forth through the worlds of The Core moving important original documents, items of ongoing research and development or the occasional large currency transfer. Despite the speed and availability of electronic media that literally replicated things 'perfectly' despite vast distances, there was still a demand for 'the real McCoy' when it came to certain legal documents or actual 'hands-oh hardware'.

So the ships that did courier work were kept busy. One trip in ten might leave the region of the Central Worlds, going out to The Boarder and an important commercial headquarters branch or scientific field site involved in major work. Regardless of the nature of the particular run, there had never more than a twenty day trip and those were even rarer as they usually involved going between the two far displaced systems that comprised 'The Boarder'. A 'usual' run was between one and three days. Sometimes they were only hours if it involved a moon and its parent planet.

The courier's captain had always been acutely aware of his crew and the obvious professionalism that they displayed in both their appearance and performance as befitted their various employers. And while their work might have been described as monotonous, it had more than enough benefits. More often than not, there were usually three or four 3-day 'off' periods in any given operational cycle which allowed both the singles and the married personnel to have a more than adequate personal life. Such a cycle also allowed for all routine maintenance and the occasional upgrade work to be accomplished in a timely manner. It—

It allowed him and his personnel to become involved in . . . things that they were probably better off not being involved in.

They weren't smugglers. Their professional pride and the danger to their lives, lifestyle and loved ones would never allow such behavior into their lives. But . . . both the Captain and several of his crew were veterans of the war . . . on the losing side. They had been a space crew together during the war, abet solely involved in supply and support functions with no actual combat. After the end, the Alliance had allowed them to keep their individual licenses even though their ship was taken and they were broken up. In the years that had followed, they had slowly drifted back together from what work they could find until they were once again together on this ship.

But they still shared the same feelings, the same anger, the same disappointment, the same—

They all had friends and 'contacts' who felt the same way. Some of those 'contacts' were still working to subvert the Alliance, using other veterans in advantageous positions who still had their own need for revenge to participate in 'small acts of defiance'.

For this Captain, his crew and his ship, they had participated in many small acts. In a sense the Captain had to admit that they were doing a different kind of 'smuggling'. But they weren't moving stolen goods or contraband; they were moving messages that couldn't be sent through normal Alliance or commercial services. They were delivering information storage from one contact to another. Vary rarely they transported an actual person from point to point.

Regardless of whatever they had carried, they had always stayed within their usual operating area of The Core with the occasional dash out to The Boarder. Sometimes they had made quick rendezvous with other ships doing the same as they; more often they met contacts planetside. Regardless, it had never interrupted their 'true' work nor had it ever caused them to stay 'out in the Black' longer than any of their normal assignments.

The Captain turned his eyes to look at his personal console in his quarters. He certainly hoped that the contacts who had arranged for his ship to take this little 'detour' knew what they were doing as far as dummying up all of his logs and covering his butt for all the consumables they had used.

The cover was a special mission for a Boarder industrialist. The logs were suppose to show that they had made a trip across the entire Boarder, followed by the ships first ever trip out to The Rim . . . to Kalidasa . . . with multiple stops in all systems.

The reality—

The Captain looked at his screen, looking at the depiction there of what was known to one and all as 'The Verse', humanities last home, a distant place sought and reached by mankind after Earth . . . or as it was known, 'Earth-that-Was' the homeworld of mankind, was 'used up'.

It was a complicated quintuple sun system comprised of a white central star system known as 'The Core', orbited by four other star systems comprised of two yellow's, a red and a blue in a complex dance of mutual attraction and interaction. The two 'middle' systems made up 'The Boarder' while the final two, the farthest ones out as well as the most recently settled (and therefore the most primitive) were known at 'The Rim'.

For three centuries, the last survivors of man had lived here, starting life anew amid the devastating memories of a homeworld wasted. There had been determination not to repeat the same mistakes twice. For the most part, that determination had paid off . . . as least as far as the fact that mankind had survived. For each of the five stars possessed a multitude of planets, nearly seventy for the entire mutli system. Much of what wasn't inhabitable had been made so through terraforming and they had done this not only to the terrestrial sized worlds but also to a bewildering number of moons large enough to be made 'earth like'.

Added to this were the gas giants, protosuns, asteroid belts, free planets (held in sway by those interconnecting multiple gravity fields rather than a particular star), a plethora of space platforms, stations and facilities filled the spaces in between the stars, spreading out from The Core to The Rim.

Here mankind had survived and more. Their history told them that Earth had had over six billion inhabitants when mankind had forced to the stars. Now, in this system, over fifty billion members of the human race made their way, living in circumstances that ranged from ultra opulent cities of fantastic wonders and advanced technology (in The Core) to worlds where oil lanterns lit the night, wood stoves cooked and provided heat and labor was done with the horse and the strong back (most of The Boarder and all of The Rim).

All was under the firm grip of the central governing body known as the 'Alliance' which monitored its citizens and enforced the laws and regulations of both order and commerce.

A monitoring that fell away the farther that one travelled away from The Core. Out on the Rim, things were rough and raw. There was a lot of empty space to get lost in—

Which was something that many appreciated in more ways than one.

For beyond The Rim was darkness. In all their time and with all their resources, those who lived in The Verse never looked back out beyond The Rim. It was almost something that just wasn't done. More in likely it never really occurred to them. It might have been the old stories of the harshness of the exodus from Earth-that-Was with its hardships and loss of life and knowledge. But whatever it was, the Darkness beyond the The Rim was never mentioned. It was okay for the inhabitants to talk about 'The Black', their pet name for the empty space that filled the spaces between their five systems. But The Black was not the Darkness. And that Darkness was enough to send shivers through any spacer's bones.

The Captain thought back over the last eight weeks and literally quivered in his seat. He then took a hefty swig on the contents of his mug. He still didn't understand it. He and his ship had made dozens of rendezvous with other 'contact' ships at various lonely spots within The Border regions. But—

Despite what all of their ships logs said, they had not spent the last eight weeks making their way about first The Boarder systems followed by Kalidasa. The fact of the matter was that they had made a beeline out—

Into the Darkness. They had gone so far outside of The Verse that they had been able to see all five stars of The Verse together for the first time out their front viewport. The sight had been both awe inspiring and frightening.

Very frightening. To their knowledge _no one_ had been this far out since the original refugees that arrived from Earth-that-Was. So frightening that—

It had almost developed into a mass psychosis. Despite the Captains relaxation of all the professional rules and regulations, despite the presence of an entire store room full of alcohol brought along for this very reason, two of his crew had gone around the bend, having to be sedated to an almost comatose state.

For they had spent almost three of the last eight weeks just sitting out there in the Darkness waiting for their contact to arrive. Why this rendezvous could not have occurred somewhere out on The Rim away from either of the systems he didn't know. At this point he didn't care either. He and his crew had already agreed that regardless of their anger and need for revenge against the Alliance; their days as a courier for the underground movement were over.

Day after day, going into weeks, the weight of the Darkness had pounded down on them. Fights had broken out between long time friends. Food was starting to run out as they didn't have the galley capacity for this kind of extended voyage. Their recycling systems started to show signs of strain from not having the kind of regular maintenance that they were use to.

During their vigil, the couriers sensors were straining outward . . . into the Darkness . . . into the void . . . toward the massive dust clouds that blocked their view of most of the rest of the galaxy. History told them that the direction that their sensors were pointed was supposedly the direction of the Earth-that-Was. None of them knew if this was true or not. It really didn't matter. Slowly their edges frayed as the weight of all that incredible void, that Darkness beyond their understanding . . . hammered down on them.

The alcohol flowed freely. Only the one actually on the sensor watch was to keep somewhat sober. That was because whenever the first detecting of the incoming contact was made, the ship was to then shut down all its sensors and recorders, the instructions being that they were to have no electronic image of the contact as well as no visual sighting. The contact would both approach and depart along the courier's aft aspect where no one could even get a glimpse of it.

By the time the rendezvous was made however, neither the Captain nor any of his crew could give a good gorram about anything but taking the cargo on board and getting out of the Darkness and back to The Verse.

But even that event was extraordinary. The sealed orders which the Captain had opened upon the first detection of the contact, along with the shutting down of all sensors, the courier was simply to open an airlock door to receive whatever was coming across. It would be ferried by someone in a spacewalk from the contact. It would be under complete radio silence. Only when that airlock was closed from outside after the cargo was placed inside it, would the courier be allowed to start its engines and make its way back home.

The crew cursed their luck, being unable to believe the extremes they had been put through. The Captain could not fathom why, when their contact ship finally did show up, why it came inward from even farther out in the Darkness as if it was coming in from somewhere 'out there', a foolish and ridiculous notion. As had been said, The Verse was the last home of mankind.

The remainder of the sealed orders were just as strange. They specifically stated that the Captain and the First Mate were to convey the transferred container to an empty cabin. After that, the Captain was to be the only one allowed to see what was inside the container.

At this point however, they were too shocked, too strained, too drunk to give a gorram. The internal gravity was turned off in order for the Captain and the Mate to haul the container to the assigned cabin. Once that was done, the Captain gave the word—

And none of the crew looked back. All eyes were ahead . . . on The Verse. They were going home. The relief the crew felt was almost a physical thing. Discipline and professionalism got even sloppier. They were going home so who cared? Only the Captain had to worry about the contents of the strange container.

This had turned out to be a person. The Captain's own 'eyes only' section of the orders demanded that he have no conversation or any other type of interaction with this person. He was simply to take the person meals at the proper time as well as actually feeding that person for they were physically restrained in both hand and foot.

It hadn't said anything about dealing with that person's sanitary needs. Obviously, whoever had written the orders had never lived aboard a small spacegoing vessel. The Captain was forced to improvise. He did so by rigging a small explosive device on his person with the First Mate outside in the passageway. The person was informed that the restraints would be taken off in order to allow them the use of the facilities. Any attempt to attack or overpower the Captain would result in the death of both.

This had been going on for two weeks now. For the last part of the sealed orders consisted of instructions on where to deliver the person as well as directives for getting there. That part of the orders was not to be opened until the ship had reentered The Verse.

They almost caused a mutiny. For the first time since the war, the Captain had armed himself, swearing he would use it if he had too. The orders stated that the ship, after crossing back into The Verse was to proceed inward almost to The Border before turning back out for their final destination. This was to cover any possible trial back out into the Darkness, another ridiculous notion that the Captain had had half a mind to ignore. But—

The fact that where they were going was considered the most dangerous part of The Verse, a place where only armed fast ships dared to go with any frequency. Had the Captain known in advance what his ultimate destination was to be he would have refused the mission, he would have—

As he took another heft swig of the contents of his mug, the Captain reflected on this. When they had been recruited for this mission, it had been made very clear to him that they on a mission as directed by 'superiors' much higher in the underground than the Captain had ever encountered before. The impression the Captain received was that these superiors were right at the top . . . an indication that this mission, and the captive person they were transporting was considered to be of the highest priority. His crew did not understand really what they were doing. How could they? To their minds, the horror of their present destination coupled upon the stress of so much time out it The Darkness might very well be more than they could stand.

The Captain had been forced to do something he never thought he would have to so . . . he had asked for their trust and fidelity. The crew plainly didn't like any part of what they were doing . . . but the Captain had passed along the same promise that he had received from the superiors. A promised that this mission and that captive were important . . . very important . . . possibly the most important thing in The Verse since the end of the Unification War.

But that knowledge, that promise and trust didn't stop the fraying. They all, Captain and crew both tried to fight the feelings . . . the nervousness . . . the rising terror caused by the weight of the unknown, of the fearsome rumors and legends of the areas surrounding the farthest star of The Verse. It was argued that only those mad or insane came out this far in a courier.

The Blue Star of The Verse, known as _Qing Long_ (or Blue Dragon) was also known throughout the Black as _Reaver_ Space.

But the Captain was resolved. He held the crews very humanity in his hands. In return of that trust and fidelity, he responded by ordering the ship to maximum performance over a period far beyond the builders specs. This coupled with the long delay in routine maintenance started to cause thing to come apart. It didn't matter to any of them. Their mind set was now, get in-get it done-get out.

Day to day existence became one of staying barely sober enough to do the jobs that needed to be accomplished. The Captain continued to allow this, the heavy use of alcohol even if it caused a loss of efficiency . . . to the point where it was now, after the past weeks, it had become a crutch and a handicap. The Captain was aware of this but he had no other way to deal with their current existence. They had run out of their normal consumables more than a week prior, they were living on emergency rations, morale was below rock bottom; one of the young lads had tried to suicide, had had to be put under.

But now they were hours away from their final destination. The Captain had allowed for one big blow-out party in celebration to the point he had himself had just now finally reach, by the emptying of his last bottle.

He, like the rest of his crew . . . which now included a total of four under full sedation, all he could think about was getting rid of the cargo, picking up the fresh consumables that were waiting, and heading back to The Core where a full months leave was promised to them, an indication that someone in their parent company was fairly high up in the underground.

Unfortunately, that was not to happen. Even as the red emergency light came on on the Captains console indicated—

The Alliance cruiser was not supposed to have been there. The Alliance never spent any time this far out. Why should they considering what else was out here? The Alliance only worried about Reavers on the very rare occasions when they penetrated to the Central Worlds. The Captain almost laughed despite the fact that his bowels felt ready to let loose in his terror. Normally, considering where they were, he would have cheered the presence of an Alliance cruiser. Now—

He was going to have to run from one, in a ship where the very engines that normally made it not as quick as some but faster than most were in a state of near shutdown—

It didn't matter; the Captain didn't even bother with the intercom. He ran from his cabin yelling at the top of his voice.

In the end, none of it mattered. The crew didn't know if the presence of the Alliance cruiser in Reaver space was merely chance or if betrayal was involved. But they could not lead the cruiser to the moon that was their destination—

And they could not be boarded, could not let their cargo be found.

Several of them broke . . . the rest . . . including the Captain panicked.

They ran—

The cruiser came after them.

* * *

It was a small arid moon like so many of The Rim worlds. The advantage of this one was that the majority of its population was gathered around the ore bearing fields near its one small sea. That left the rest of its surface pretty wide open and very lonely. Smugglers liked areas like this to trade off cargo, coming in real quick, dropping the load and getting out. Generally they didn't like to hide in such places for a moon was still a moon, lots smaller than planets when one was trying to hide from Alliance detection equipment.

Then one added the fact that it was a moon in a region of Reaver space. Things tended to get a whole lot more interesting in places such as that. That was why most smugglers didn't like to come to such regions at all let alone hide in them.

Unless you had a pilot who was skilled enough . . . or crazy enough to park the ship someplace where it was harder to see and detect. Even that had its limitations. A deep gorge could still be seen from directly overhead and Alliance sensor operators were trained with this kind of a maneuver in mind. Any other options—

This ship was a Firefly, what it didn't make up for in appearance it made up for in maneuverability. It also had a pilot who was both skilled and probably slightly crazy.

It was huddled back under a large scooped indentation in the wall of a fairly substantial cliff. There wasn't much more than forty feet between its dorsal and the 'roof' of the depression. It was canted partially sideways as the depression also wasn't that deep, the cocked angle being necessary to get all of the ship under cover. The cliff faced 'south', effectively keeping the ship out of any direct sunlight during the course of the moons sixteen hour day. This kept it from showing as a metallic/ceramic 'hot spot' from space during the day. The rest of the time however—

"—I'll take three, how much longer are we gonna sit here?"

Jayne Cobb had his hand out for the requested cards from the player on his right but his eyes were on the man sitting to his left.

"You in a hurry to get somewhere?" Malcolm Reynolds asked without even a look at the man asking.

"Jus don't like to sit anywhere too long," Jayne replied, the surliness in his voice hiding the discomfort that lay underneath it. "It ain't healthy. Specially round these parts." He glanced around as if he expected enemies to come bursting through the walls any moment. "Reavers can smell blood two AU's away they say. Stay too long in one place—"

"Well it appears," Mal continued as he considered his own cards, "that it would be definitely be a different kind of unhealthy to be wanderin about these parts right now." His eyes came up from his cards looking toward the dealer, "take two."

The dealer, Hoban 'Wash' Washburne dutifully passed the cards to the Captain as he added, "haven't seen anything on the passives in six hours or so." He shrugged his shoulders, "could be that they caught whoever they were looking for and moved on." A happier look came to his face as the thought struck him, "or maybe they found Reavers and are chasing them over to the other side of the Verse."

Mal was studying his freshly supplemented hand but gave an absent shake of his head. "Five Alliance cruisers, a pair and a threesome, crisscrossin the area in what looked like a search pattern might be one thing, but two more of them lyin powered down and dark—Alliance ships don't do that. It's—against their egos or somethin." Even as he studied his cards, Mal shook his head in wonder. "Course, there ain't been this many cruisers together in one place anytime since the war. They're lookin hard for somethin or someone that ain't Reavers and I don't want us to stumble in where we don't belong." He adjusted the cards in his hand before saying, "That many cruisers lurkin about, it would be hard to run without running into another. And that might be a tad bit of a problem.

Wash gave another 'agreeing' shrug, "yeah, there's the point. We almost did run right into the the two powered down ones and if we hadn't been dark ourselves from that threesome earlier they would have seen us."

That in itself could well be thought of as a minor miracle. Upon entering the _Qing Long_ system, Wash had been more than his usual careful if for no other reason than keeping an eye out for Reavers. The first pair of cruisers had announced themselves by going active on their sensors before _Serenity_ had come into their effective range. From what Wash had been able to tell, some other ship had fallen into the web and it was that poor unfortunate that the pair of cruisers had gone after.

The trio had come up a while later. Wash was effectively into his 'tippy-toe' mode and some inner sense had told him that things were not good. On his own, he had Kaylee shut things down going 'black', allowing only their current momentum to carry them forward. The three cruisers had appeared far over to their side, arranged in a vertical triangle for maximum sensor coverage. Wash had used the maneuvering thrusters to keep the bow of _Serenity_ pointed toward the cruisers as they flew by, keeping their after aspect with its residual engine radiation away from the Fed's passive sensors.

Now thoroughly alarmed, those aboard _Serenity_ were in a heated discussion about their options when they had nearly flown into the two 'black' cruisers. They kept their heads about them, sliding by the two behemoths with held breaths, clenched fists, and hearts in their mouths. After getting by the pair, they figured that the only reason why they had done so was that the 'black' cruisers were slack, probably thinking that the region of space between them and the previous trio of cruisers didn't have to be watched closely as nothing could have possibly gotten by that same trio.

This left them in their current situation.

"So," Jayne came back, sounding slightly surlier, "back to the question. How long are we gonna sit here?"

"Till it feels right," Mal said with the finality of his 'Captains' voice. He then added in his 'card playing' voice, "open with two."

Jayne shook his head irritably, muttering, "least we could do is be normal like while we're waitin."

Mal flashed an exaggerated smile with a light toned, "think of it like you were a kid again Jayne and you couldn't go campin like your daddy promised so your momma set you up to do so in your own room with a blanket and a broomstick."

Wash snorted a laugh and looked around the cargo hold, "yeah . . . I can see you . . ."

He cut off when he glanced back at Jayne and saw the look on the big mercenaries face in the dim half light.

For their table was set up in the center for the floor of the Cargo Bay of Mal's ship _Serenity_. Their card game was being lit by candles and they were all shirtless due to the hot stuffy air in the Bay from lack of air conditioning.

It had been five days since their seemingly 'chance' encounters with the Alliance ships. Due to the fact that the cruisers and such had been so 'thick' in this part of space, Mal had ordered extra caution for their current cargo wasn't even close to being legit and there was too much of it to get it all hidden in his boat's hidey holes. When they had almost run into the dark cruisers, Mal decreed that a little time out was in order. Some time on the ground (where they would use less consumables) with their passive sensors going wide open, working to get a pulse on this part of the Black, hopefully giving a better picture of just what was going on.

That meant a roundabout approach to the moon New Omaha and as stealthy a reentry and landing that the Wash could make. In the period since, Mal's caution seemed further justified as several Alliance ships, not just cruisers but other classes as well had overflow the moon during the following days.

With that kind of intense activity in the sector, as a further precaution, Mal had directed that not only were they to be completely powered down and dark, but there was to be no chance of any kind of an emission being emitted and detected. So despite the presence of the cliff overhang above them, the Dining Area was off limits making sure that no lighting, heat signatures or microwave from cooking or even the infrared from the stove or a person walking through the Dining Area was to be visible to the sky at the horizon. They were continuing to monitor what was above and around them using passive sensors run on actual wires (rather than detectable wireless) to the top of the cliff enabling a full 360 view.

But all this meant that they were on lantern or candlelight, no air conditioning, eating cold food . . . NO COFFEE . . .

Which did nothing to help certain people's moods.

That certain person continued to grumble even as he saw Mal's opening bet.

Movement on the catwalk caught the Captains eye—

Revealing the other who wasn't happy with the turn of events.

The Companion . . . could be described as certainly less than happy. The trip all the way out to _Qing Long_ had taken her far away from her usual clientele. The fact that they were in Reaver space also dictated that they get into _Qing Long_, get the cargo dropped and get out which meant that there wasn't even a chance that she could make up for the period of enforced inactivity with a quick contract with one of the high mucky mucks from the major mining companies. All in all, it meant almost six weeks were she was just a passenger along for the ride.

In days past, the Companion wouldn't really have had any real trouble with this as those on the boat were considered 'family' by her. But things were different now and the reasons behind that change were known only to her and the Captain. The others had caught the drift from the chill between the two but no one had attempted to venture farther, which made the both of them at least livable. Anyway, the Companion had been spending the majority of her time in her powered down shuttle . . . which considering the . . . skimpiness of her wardrobe in the heat . . . was also probably a good thing.

Mal accented his own feeling by giving Inara only a glance before returning his attention to the game before him. It was helping that the rest of his crew had no complaints with his actions . . . or at least . . . sorta . . . somewhat . . . kinda. His First Mate Zoe was dealing with the situation as she always did, with quiet competence and a watchful eye. She and her husband Wash were spelling each other on the sensor watch for the majority of the ships day, Mal taking the night shift allowing the two of them to sleep together on the mattress they had thrown onto the floor of the second shuttle. With the inner hatch closed, the outer hatch of the shuttle could be opened for some air at night. Mal was sorry that he couldn't provide them with a little nicer accommodation for _everyone_ (except the Companion of course) was sleeping in that shuttle at night. With life support shut down, everyone's cabins were much too hot and stuffy to sleep in.

His engineer on the other hand, had initially been grateful for the extended power down in order to do work on systems that required such lengthy down time. But Kaylee had finished all that work and had been hinting rather broadly that it was time to fire things up in order for her to check her work.

She had been less than pleased with Mal's less than pleased response to her last little hint.

His passengers, they were being no problem. The Shepherd Book was calm as always, trying to keep everyone's spirits up and making light of the good things. And the Tam siblings seemed to be having a period of relative calm of which Mal was grateful. River, Simon's younger sister seemed to be dealing with her demons fairly well at the moment which allowed Simon himself to be a little more relaxed.

"Raise three," Wash said, sounding slightly . . . 'uncalm', his eyes were locked on Jayne's face and the real strange look there.

"How did you know about my mom—" the Merc suddenly blurted at Mal.

The ex-Browncoat non-com smiled back beatifically allowing that to be his answer.

* * *

The small ship had led a miraculous life before the inevitable happened and it finally got tagged. Almost a charmed life in fact for it had managed to outrun the first cruiser it had encountered. But cutting first up and then down through the plane of the _Qing Long_ system it had run into a hoard of other Alliance ships. The crew had more than panicked, their already loose grip on sanity compounded by alcohol causing them not being able to cope with the idea of so many Alliance ships in such a small area of space. Clearly they lost it completely, running full out at a Hard Burn without any evasive maneuvers . . . and in doing so, them managed to overloaded their already overextended and tired drive. In the interim, they had been able to lose all but one of their pursuers, but when the drive flared out, going to less than a third of its efficiency, their fate was sealed for one Alliance cruiser was more than enough to run them to ground.

By the time the small ship entered the atmosphere of New Omaha in a desperate attempt to land, the ship had been shot to pieces, the majority of its crew, including the Captain dead, its surviving crew having lost all hope but having no other option other than suicide, something they still couldn't bring themselves to do even at this point. But they were mad with terror as they made a last final effort to to reach breathable dirt where maybe they could run on foot.

What was left of the ship, now a flaming wreak that started to burn as soon as it was in enough atmosphere to do so, was less than a thousand feet from the ground when the final missile went right square into its tail. The rear end of the ship completely disintegrated in the fiery explosion. It lost all flight ability, twisting about, falling like a stone, flopping down like a dead duck, hitting the ground hard, bouncing as parts and pieces and components flew off in all directions, hitting again—

It then cartwheeled, digging up great hunks of dirt, shredding itself.

The forward part of the hull finally came loose, plowing through the scrub until it at last came to rest, the remainder of the ship, now in thousands of pieces flying and skipping and bouncing off into the desert—

As the star that was the Alliance cruiser rose in the night sky of New Omaha toward the zenith.

And five miles away under the cliffs of the nearby buttes, nine pairs of eyes, called to the bridge by Zoe Washburne in response to the passive sensors watched that horrible end.

* * *

Mal had magnifiers to his eyes looking out the bridge viewports. In the darkness, no detail was possible but his military training was able to tell him that at least the burning parts of the wreckage were trailed out over a mile or so in length. There would be no survivors. But that didn't matter, what did was, "alright folks, let's quietly strap our guns on and get ready, it seems as if we could have some company shortly when that cruiser sends down a crew to survey what little is left of that thing." He lowered the magnifiers and turned to the barely visible figures in the darkness. "If they do it right away, they should be in and out before dawn . . . and we should be okay. We're cold and have been for some time. If we stay away from the ports we should be safe from any casual scan."

He glanced at a time piece before going on. "If they wait till daylight, we just might get spotted." Looking at the shortest form, "Kaylee, you best be ready to go from totally cold to a Hard Burn just as fast as you can manage it. We'll stay dark until it looks like they spotted us. If they do, you'll have to do it mighty quick cause we'd have to be out of here for they get close enough to make us or get a shot with a portable ground-to-air. Wash—"

"We'll go out in whatever direction is best Mal," came the reply, the pilot's voice a little distracted for he was already 'flying the route' in his mind. "Be huggin the ground for as long as we can once we go in order to lose their visual on us as quick as we can. It'll be more than a little rough so everyone best be ready."

"So Zoe," Mal continued on from Wash's statement, "get everything that we've drug out put away and tied down. Don't need things getting broken if we can help it."

"Yes sir," came the reply out of the darkness.

"Alright folks," Mal concluded as he turned back around, lifting the magnifiers back to his eyes, "let's get her saddled and lets have one foot in the stirrup 'case we have to light out with a fire behind us."

* * *

"Mal?"

The Captain of _Serenity_ jerked his head around to his pilot. He then grimaced at the protest his neck muscles made.

The two of them had been keeping watch on the bridge since Mal had given everyone their marching orders. It was now . . . four hours after sunrise . . . and no Alliance inspection crew—

Not so much as even a flyover by a gunship.

Mal was tired, stiff, sore, and a lot more than a bit worried by the fact that the Feds so far hadn't been playing to their normal script.

And now . . . that warning tone in Wash's voice that the pilot used when he didn't understand just what he was seeing.

"What?" Mal asked, his own eyes flashing across the screens of the passive sensors in front of the pilot. Nothing was visible to him.

"I just realized," Wash said slowly as if he was trying to convince himself of something that he wasn't sure of, "that I haven't seen the cruiser."

Mal didn't move for a moment, then he cocked an eyebrow, "how could you have lost the cruiser?"

Wash's hands were moving as if he wanted to play with the sensor controls but was being forced to stop his fingers just millimeters away from their surface. "I think the cruiser lost us," was the pilots absent reply. "I mean, at the moment I'm not really sure cause I've been watching the horizons for a low approach of a shuttle or assault boat." He looked up at Mal, a look combining his uncertainty and worry that he had missed something. "But I just realized that it's been _hours_ since I last saw that beast."

Mal's other eyebrow went up. "Hours?" he repeated.

Wash nodded uncertainly. "She was there where and when I expected her on the first orbit after sunrise. When she made the next orbit after that, she had shifted so that she went directly over the wreck. The passives showed that she did a full sensor sweep and I think that the orbital shift was because they wanted the best visual that they could get. But," he looked back down at his screens, "that was the last time I remember seeing her. It's almost—"

Mal picked up the thread, "as if they just did a visual and sensor confirmation and then pulled out." Mal's head came around to look out of the viewports at the black clouds from the still smoldering wreckage. "And that was three hours ago. They could be halfway to Highgate by now."

Wash shrugged. "Or lurking out at the L3 point where we couldn't pick them up."

Mal thought a moment before, "Don't think so. They may have had to get out in order to rejoin the blockade they've got up. That would mean that they got this one," he nodded toward the wreckage, "but there's more that they're lookin for. But bein as that may," Mal abruptly turned and walked to the hatch leading to the forward passageway where he yelled, "Zoe!"

Mal then turned back towards Wash who could see the gears turning inside of the Captain's head. "Bein as that may," Mal repeated, "this place is now a bit too populated for the likes of us and I think it would best that we were leavin afore a marshal or some such shows up to have a look at what's left." Mal looked at the pilot. "Think bout getting us outta here. I think in this case, since all those Alliance ships were lurkin about in bare and open space—"

"That," Wash nodded with understanding, "they're looking for someone trying to slip in and they're not paying any attention to the regular routes. If we act respectable, we'll get out unseen."

"Unseen cause we're bein seen," Mal agreed even as he turned his head to greet his First Mate as she stepped onto the bridge. She had been sitting atop the hull by the open dorsal airlock hatch, standing by in case the wires to the passives had to be cut in a hurry. Her eyes asking the questions.

Mal nodded at Wash's instrument panel, "looks as if the Fed took a single look from orbit and then lit out."

The questions in Zoe's eyes only got bigger even as she looked at her husband. He just gave her a shrug and, "haven't seen a thing in three hours."

Zoe gave Wash a single nod then looked back to Mal, "so I take it that we're going slip out quietly before anyone gets back?

Mal gave her a nod, "that's eventual the plan."

"Shall Jayne and I start to pull in the passives then?" she asked.

Mal kind of dropped his head a little before saying _very_ slowly, "yeah, bring them in . . . and have Kaylee bring back the internal power and the lights . . . but not the engine . . . not just yet."

The questions were back in Zoe's eyes. Mal gave her a wan smile in response before turning and looking out of the viewports, "I think that maybe we need to do a real quick looksee ourselves." He then turned back to his First Mate, his full 'bad boy' smile now in place. "We jus might find somethin that would be worth our time."

Jayne who had come up behind Zoe in time to hear that statement sounded more than a little worried, "you think that's really smart?"

"Well," Wash's voice was thoughtful, "there is the point that we don't know just how far away that beast is or if there's another lurking about keeping an eye on things. Best bet is that if nobody shows up sooner that our best time to get out would be about an hour or so after sunset."

Zoe sounded like she was trying to understand her husband's train of thought and not succeeding. "How do you figure that?"

Wash's shrug was almost audible. "You've all seen the static discharge and lightning that happens right around sunset and a period after." He got nods from all around. "The mines here . . . well hell, most of the mines that operate on planets with no pollution control, something similar to the lovely garden spot I hail from, the separation process involves a whole lot of different magnetic fields, the excess they discharge into the atmo." He waved his hand around the universe in general. "Lots of free electrical static, electrons, all manner of fancy scientifically named stuff floating around out there. The temperature change that comes with sundown is kind of like a thunderstorm without clouds . . . or wind or rain or hail. Lots of voltage being discharged. Moderate visual impairment for a direct watcher, major sensor impairment. Easy to sneak out at a time like that."

"Sounds kinda thin to me," Jayne mumbled.

"Regardless," Mal said firmly to them all, "we're gonna take a look. We just might find a clue bout why all this (he gestured out toward the wreck) happened. I'd best like to know just how far we should go once we head out, do we have to go straight to Lilac, or should we take a roundabout route."

Zoe turned to moved off of the bridge, "I assume that you'll want the mule?"

"Yeah, with the trailer," was Mal's reply. He continued to look toward the wreckage for a long moment after Jayne followed Zoe's off the bridge, still muttering as he went. Then as he turned to follow, Wash spoke up, the worry now plain in his voice.

"Despite what I said, we're really challenging the odd's by not bugging out right now." He stood up from behind the pilots console to look at a meter on the bulkhead. "It's not something that you would normally do? What is it that you'll think you'll find out there?"

Mal gave the pilot a sharp look as if annoyed that Wash you say anything about what he would 'normally do'. But he bit back any sharp reply and once again looked out into the distance and the burning wreckage there.

"Don't know," he admitted reluctantly. "But somethin's callin . . . " Mal shook his head. "Like I said, I don't know. There's gotta be something strange or secret over there if an Alliance cruiser shot it down and then left without surveying the wreckage. I would just feel better if I had an idea just why that happened. It's too strange to be."

"Well, I'll agree with that," Wash said giving Mal a look that seemed resigned. "But if it's just the same to you, I would rather not have to do some kind of dangerous and daring flying to get us out if someone shows up."

Mal snorted. "Ain't gonna happen."

Wash snorted in reply. "Like I haven't heard that before."

Mal then turned and headed out of the bridge. His eyebrows rose a little when he say that Zoe hadn't gone on her way to start getting things going, she was waiting for him at the bottom of the bridge ladder.

Mal knew that the same thoughts were on her mind as had been voiced by her husband. The difference was that she knew that she would get the truth from her Captain.

"Look," Mal told her sounding just a little bit desperate. "As late as we are on this run, the client might ask for a piece of our pay for not bein on time. Wash and Kaylee are both screaming that there's stuff that they have to get fixed if we're not gonna run outta gas again. We ain't had a job for three weeks prior to gettin this one and the pantry's mighty bare with no pot of gold sittin anywhere close by." He took a deep breath as if trying to control anger before saying, "My behind is sittin on a rare laser pistol worth a small moon that's still too hot to get rid of and the paint on my toilet is starting to peel. On the off chance that there's something out there (he jerked a thumb in the direction of the crash site) that survived, something that's the cause and reason why the Feds wanted that ship that bad and yet didn't come down for a looksee themselves, if we can grab it . . . it just might make this risk and I admit it's a risk justified—"

Zoe nodded in understanding. Mal would do anything that he had to do to keep flying. And everything he had said had also been true. She could only hope that their fickle luck would hold and that they could find something that would make it worthwhile without extracting a price from their hides.

"The mule will be ready in five sir."

* * *

A/N: So here it is. Frankly I'm scared to death to actually post this but I earnestly hope that at least some readers will get some enjoyment out of it. If that happens, I will be satisfied.

As had been said, I'm only playing in the Firefly/Serenity universe. As such, I've reviewed all the DVD's and such but obviously that is not enough so I wish to acknowledge the most helpful sources that I found on the Web.

Labarc(dot)com – for interior photographs of _Serenity_

Reachforthesky(dot)wikidot(dot)com – for ship plans for _Serenity_

Can't Take the Sky [still-flying(dot)net] – screencaps

Whoa. Good Myth [firefly(dot)shriftweb(dot)org] – script transcripts

Wapedia(dot)mobi – List of Planets and Moons

Serenitymush(dot)com – List of Planets and Moons

Note: The lists of planets and moons are apparently considered to be part of the RPG universe. I do not know how well they are accepted by those who are faithful to canon. But they were the only source I could find. No insult is intended if the information is not accepted as canon.

Alright, that's it for now.

Until next time

I Shall Remain

Your Loyal and Devoted Servant

The Wise Duck


	2. Discovery

A/N: I want to take a moment and thank everyone who read this. Due to the fact that I apparently posted it just as the bots went down, it was days before I could see if anyone was looking at it. Needless to say it was a little nerve wracking.

I want to especially thank the two who reviewed; ryebread, whom I know from the Kim Possible thread and RionaErie with whom I have started a very enjoyable correspondence. Other reviews are welcome of course including ones that have constructive criticism. Believe me when I say that I got several of those when getting started on the KP thread, I paid grave attention to them, and I like to think that they definitely improved the product.

So here we go again, I hope it meets your approval.

* * *

Chapter Two – Discovery

_Qing Long_ was at its zenith when they reached the wreck, its heat coming in hard through the comparatively thin atmosphere of the moon. Added to the discomfort of the planets climate was the smoke and stench from both the charred wreak and burned scrub. It was probably fortunate that New Omaha was an arid world for the desert plants of its surface had resisted spreading the flames of the wreck beyond where the flammable contents from the ship itself had come to rest. What had burned among the scrub died out fairly quickly as long as it wasn't in contact with hot parts and debris from the wreck itself. What remained smoldered with almost perpetual determination.

Mal, Kaylee and Simon stood in a tight group together, all of them wrinkling their noses at the all too telling odors coming from the smoldering wreckage as Jayne turned the mule around to go back to the boat for Zoe and Book. Mal and Kaylee eyed where they would start looking while Simon once again contemplated his own feelings about being 'in thick with thieves'. He knew that there was absolutely no chance for any of the small ship's crew to be alive so his presence at the site wasn't really necessary. But he told himself that there was enough of a possibility that someone from _Serenity_ might get hurt while they stripped this charred corpse of a ship. Inside he knew that it was his worry for Kaylee, who would be right in the middle of the attempt that had caused him to come along . . . and it was her small smiles and sidelong glances in his direction that told him that she knew it. That was good enough for him.

When everyone was set, they made ready to go in among the wreckage. Kaylee, swallowing against the nausea that crept around the back of her throat despite the breathing mask; which along with thick gloves, a heavy leather welding apron, knee pads and hair wrapped in a wet towel, all of which was meant to protect her from the hazmat of fried plastics/circuits and boiled hydraulics, had to crawl into the collapsed rear area of the forward section of the hull (the largest remaining single surviving intact piece) in an attempt to salvage anything useful.

She had to take great care while doing so. When one combined the heat of the desert day put against the situation inside of the wreck with its places of intense heat from various overloaded/destroyed components, there was the very real possibility of calamity for anyone venturing inside as the 'heat from the desert' could mask the 'heat from overloaded/destroyed components'. Under such circumstances, Kaylee could come too close to something really hot and damaging without realizing it until too late, risking a debilitating burn. There was also the problem with the crushed/ripped/mangled structure of the ship itself which was why Kaylee was being watched by both Jayne and Simon as well as being tied to a recovery tether. The Merc and the Doctor were squatted down in front of the hole in the hull she had disappeared into listening as her 'spotters' should she encounter trouble.

At the same time, Zoe and Shepherd Book worked 'forward' together from where Jayne and Simon waited at the rear of the forward section of the wreck. Like Kaylee and her spotters, they were using oxygen against the stench. Neither one of them had much hope of finding anything useful but there was always hope that; as far as Zoe was concerned, maybe they would find the Captain's money chest or something similar that could have survived and for the Shepherd, there might be the remains of one of the crew over which he could say what needed to be said.

Mal was trolling back through the debris field looking for intact, untwisted/burned metal or parts that they could resell for scrap. He had little hope of finding too much that wasn't distorted beyond recognition considering the way they had seen the thing bounce but it was something that had to be checked.

He knew that he was also looking for 'something else'. He personally would have preferred going through the forward section of the wreck himself but he was too big and Kaylee was smaller. But he knew that the Engineer would be focused on . . . engineers stuff. He was looking for clues, an idea, an explanation as for what and why.

He knew that there wasn't much time, that he was pushing his luck more than a man had a right to ask.

Mal wanted the search done within two hours. Before coming out to the wreck site, Kaylee had brought _Serenity_ back to life in order for Wash to have full sensors to watch their backs and be ready to scramble if something 'unfortunate' showed up. Hopefully there would be enough time for them all to get back and Wash to get away without anybody shooting at anybody (meaning him and his ship).

Pushing his luck more than a man had a right to ask.

Mal had followed the debris trail back better than a mile finding only a dozen or so parts/scraps worth bringing the mule over in order for them to be dragged out of the dirt and from there back to the ship. It was actually more than he had expected but still far less than he had hoped. He'd marked them with the stakes that he had brought along and was trudging back toward the wreck with his eyes still on the ground before and to the sides of his path but with little hope of finding anything more than he already had.

About halfway back, he stopped to remove his canteen, his old Browncoat reflexes automatically scanning the country to either side of him as he did so. Far off to his left was the smoldering remains of what was probably some kind of generator. There had been several things of the like off to either side of the crash path but as he wasn't wearing any hazmat gear he was avoiding them. Glancing off to the other side—

Mal did a double take—

He then started off the path, working his way through the scrub. A tall thicket of that same scrub had blocked his view of what he had just seen when he had been originally working down the path and if he hadn't stopped where he had to drink, he doubted that he would have seen it through a break in the thicket as he returned up it.

It took all of a couple of dozen steps to confirm what he had first thought. The dented but mostly intact form of an escape pod was nestled in among the thicket of scrub. When Mal got close enough he hesitated. He had no way of knowing if the pods solid fuel rockets or explosive separation charges had gone off so there was a danger that one or all of those could become downright nasty at any time under any condition considering how they must have been mistreated.

But if the interior of the pod was intact, there would be things well worth salvaging

A half an hour later, he was back with Zoe, Book, Jayne and Simon, the five of them standing back a safe distance as Kaylee gingerly approached the thing. She was holding a portable diagnostic panel out in front of her as if she intended to fling it up to protect her face if things started to suddenly go. Mal had told her that he would handle the initial approach but she had insisted that as the Engineer, that was her job.

Kaylee had come up to the pod without any problems, carefully reaching out to plug a contact into the umbilical port, thankful for the fact that the pod had come to rest with the port facing upward and accessible rather than pointing down into the ground or something. That accomplished, she went down on her knees, using her proximity to the body of the pod as protection as she quickly ran a scan through her panel. A frown visible to all came over her face.

"What is it?" Mal called.

"The charges and motors were all disabled before the pod was thrown clear of the ship," Kaylee yelled back, the wonder as why anyone would do such a thing plain in her voice. "What could they have been thinking? No one would have been able to use this pod to escape in."

Mal, Zoe, and Jayne exchanged looks. They all knew that someone might have done such a thing if the pod was being used for storage of something that someone on the ship might have wanted hidden away, the ejection charges and escape motors being disabled to remove the chance of the pod being accidently launched off, all the hidden cargo aboard it going with it.

What kind of contraband might this pod contain?

Mal was already stepping over. "Is everything else safe with it?" he asked as he reached out to grab hand holds enabling him to start to clamber up onto it.

"Near as I can tell," Kaylee answered as she looked up at her Captain. "It doesn't appear as if any of the pods systems were activated or used other than the crash systems which worked automatically when the pod was thrown clear of the ship."

Mal nodded, Kaylee's answer being another indication in his mind that the pod was just being used for storage. Once he was on top (again it was fortunate that the pods hatch was pointed 'up' toward the sky), he started to work on the manual dogs to get the hatch open. "Let's just hope that there's somethin inside worth these guys' ship and lives," he muttered to himself as he worked the stubborn closures.

There was a 'shump', a blast of air pressure as the outside air rushed into the lower pressured pod as the hatch started to open on its manual springs. Mal stood up and back out of the way, hand resting on his gun by habit. He knew that the pod had to be empty if none of its systems were on line but survival habits died hard—

As the hatch came open, the end of it passing in front of his face, his eyes already starting to look at the inside as the daylight spilled into it—

Then he realized that the first thing he saw was a leg covered with blood.

"Whoa," came from his lips as he took an involuntary step back—

Which left him rocking atop of the pod as he almost lost his balance on its uneven surface.

"Captain?" came Zoe's voice in instant concern even as she and all of those with her started to move forward as one—

The hatch was all the way open now, Mal's eyes trying to make sense of what they were seeing—

But that took only a moment. All he _could_ see what what appeared to be the bloody leg and what looked like a mass of long, flung about dark hair coming out from under a pile of thrown about bins and boxes so it took a moment for his brain to put the picture into a recognizable reference. The leg looked . . . female . . . but that was only an impression for in was partially surrounded by a torn bloody pants leg that had probably covered it prior to the crash.

There was blood on the hair as well.

The other thing that took Mal a moment to fathom—

After all, it had been a good fourteen hours since they had seen the ship shot down . . . in that time, the blood of anyone who had been injured during that time should have dried and turned dark—

Mal realized that now that the hatch was open and the pressures equal, he could smell the blood. The blood Mal was seeing was red and fresh . . . that meant that whoever was under all that jumbled stuff was still bleeding, that despite the crash and all the time that had passed and the desert heat in the sealed pod—

The person—the woman . . . was alive—

"Doctor," Mal barked without another thought.

Zoe and Book were there as well, helping the physician and his equipment up before they too clambered up. With their assistance, Simon and Mal were able to gingerly work their way down into the pod on each side of the figure. From there they started moving some of the refuse and wreckage covering the form aside.

Mal's thoughts in the meantime were racing around worse than a herd of wild stallions. He wanted to think that he was just interested in getting whoever this woman was aside so that he could look for whatever _other_ contraband was hidden in the pod. He couldn't quite get his mind wrapped about why someone would be hidden in a powered down, off-line pod that was set up to _prevent_ escape from the ship being pursued.

Unless—

Could the woman have been a passenger? Could it have been that she had climbed into the pod without knowing that it wasn't functioning? If that was the case, it was only by the luck of the greatest gambler that the pod she had sought refuge in had been flung aside during the crash . . . and the fact that she was still bleeding and somehow alive after all that and the time that had passed; Book might call such a thing a miracle but being that Mal didn't believe in such things, it only made his thoughts go that much more chaotic. Being that the Captain of the _Serenity_ had a naturally nasty suspicious mind, the fact that he could not come up with any acceptable explanation for all the things that were _wrong_ with the various trains of thought running through him only fueled the growing feeling within him that they just might be in over their heads.

Mal reached down, grabbing a long cargo carton that had covered most of the woman's body, starting to lever it up out of the way. As he did so, Simon, who was making impatient/ questioning motions with his hands even as he ducked under the carton that Mal was moving informed one and all, "the pods safety devices deployed as they were suppose too but with all this _fie wu_ in here they couldn't do their job right. " He got his shoulder under part of the carton to help push it up. "Still, that's probably the reason why she's mostly intact but—" he pulled some other stuff away from her lower parts as Mal got the carton all the way clear.

"Her ankles are tied," Mal heard Simon grunt, now that the woman was mostly visible. Simon gently pulled at her as Mal handed out the carton . . . a moment passing by before the physician added, "her hands are tied . . . and their tied behind her back. This woman was a captive."

That . . . caused whatever Mal had been thinking went right out of the window as more urgent priorities came to the fore. All he managed to mutter was a heartfelt "gorram" as Simon worked to pull a good chunk of the hair up and away from the woman's body.

There was another large wound on the woman's forehead. It had been bleeding as all head wounds did so most of her face was concealed under a mask of blood. But with the majority of the debris cleared away, the fact that she was breathing could be clearly seen.

Which meant that Mal has to make a decision.

He did. He wasn't happy about it . . . but—

"Leave her be," Mal ordered Simon, suddenly coming upright and starting to reach up to pull himself out of the pod. "We've got to get movin."

"Wha—?" Simon managed to get out of his mouth.

"There's way too many things that a man can't figure out goin on right now," Mal told them all firmly as he got himself up to stand on the pod next to the hatch. He flicked his finger up at the sky, "there hasn't been a concentration of cruisers like what we've seen in these parts since the war. The fact that they're sitting dark like an ambush and a blockade, the fact that they've got smaller ships that have been patrollin this moon even though there's nothin here to patrol." He shook his head conveying his worry and inability to understand. "I know that I was the one to bring us over her but now I can see that we're askin for more trouble than a herd of sick cattle." He gestured at the bloody form. "I was thinkin that there might have been some of that stolen tech that we heard about in Silverhold or the mass of data that someone got away with from Sihnon. But a person, a captive . . . with that much Alliance muscle lookin for her—" He turned and reached for the carton that was still in Book's hands. "Let's put that back in Shepherd. Get up outta there Doctor. We're gonna pile everything back in like it was and close her up again. Try to make like we were never here."

"But that's crazy!" Simon exclaimed. "This woman is _alive!_ We can't just leave her!"

"Oh yes we can," Mal shot back. "How am I gonna explain _her_ if we get stopped tryin to get away from this moon. We can't put her in a suit and hide her outside on the hull like we can you and your sister Doctor. And if the Feds are lookin for someone, someone kidnapped, maybe from them, you know what'll happen if we get boarded? They'll search every corner and hole. I can't take that chance."

"Does that mean sir . . . " Zoe quietly put in, her eyes locked _hard_ on her Captain, "that you intend to dump all our other . . . less that legal cargo as well?"

Mal's head jerked at her suggestion which allowed Zoe to press the statement home with, "I mean, if you think it's so likely that we're going to be stopped and boarded and searched . . . don't you think that we ought to take all the precautions that we can . . . sir."

Mal's mouth opened as his mental gears ground about trying to find another tack to take—

"Hey!" Jayne snapped from where he was standing on the ground next to Kaylee, "Mal's right. We don't need another passenger that could get us all in a fix. Finish checking inside for anything we can sell and let's get outta here." He glanced down next to him to see a glaring Kaylee burning her eyes into him. Jayne felt himself flush under her gaze and he mumbled, "well, we surein don't need another strange female on board do we . . . I don't want anyone tryin to cut me again."

Book had his eyes on Mal with the same hard intensity that Zoe did. But his tone was softer, more reasonable. "What you saying is wrong Captain . . . and you know it. We cannot abandon someone injured and incapable of helping themselves. Like it or not, she is now our responsibility."

"Not if I say she's not," Mal snapped back into the preachers face.

Simon clenched up his whole body. "_That_ you should have thought of before you called me in here." He pointed down at the partially uncovered figure underneath him. "I don't have any idea why this woman is still alive considering how long she's been here, the conditions inside of the pod _and_ how much blood she's lost . . . but she _is_! And now that I'm here, I'm not going to abandon her."

"Then you'll be here by yourself." Mal said in a quiet, stern tone. His first impulse was to remove the problem entirely by pulling his gun and shooting the figure—

The . . . bloody, helpless figure that he really _didn't _know was a friend, an enemy . . . or even a helpless hostage from something entirely different that the Alliance ship knew nothing about.

Then Mal felt a . . . retraining hand on his shoulder. He knew that feel all too well. So he didn't even bother to turn and look at Book. He did look at Zoe who was across from him—

And saw her eyes burning right back at him, silently telling him _don't you dare_.

Mal . . . wasn't happy in the least. He was the Captain. He was trying to think of all of _their_ welfare as well. He looked down at Kaylee who was looking up at him—

With eyes as big around as saucers, eyes pleading for him not to do it.

"Ain't nothin good gonna come from this," he muttered as he moved to lower himself back down into the pod.

* * *

Mal was now downright angry . . . and even angrier about the fact that he couldn't really show just how angry he was.

Cause everything else going on at the moment was just too downright confusing for him.

He and Simon had managed to get the unknown woman uncovered. It had been hard to get an initial impression due to all the debris covering her plus all the blood, but they were finally able to tell that the woman had been dressed in some kind of dark overall/jumpsuit type thing somewhat similar to the ones Kaylee wore but of a fabric which Mal didn't recognize.

As they worked over the unconscious woman, it looked more and more to Mal as if she had just been thrown into the pod hogtied and left just as is for there was no sign that there had ever been an attempt to strap her in to one of the seats or otherwise restrain her body. A quantity of other objects, containers, and items had been thrown in with her. Mal and his people could guess from their own experiences running from hostile ships that the last hour of the woman's time inside the pod had been . . . less than pleasant. The frantic maneuvering which had ultimately ended in the ship being struck by fire from the cruiser and the subsequent crash would have been brutal aboard the ship. But for the woman, being that the pods systems had been intentionally shut down, it had been very likely that there had been no internal gravity compensation within the pod for all that violent maneuvering.

The end result was that the inside of the pod had turned into something very much like a shaker full of sharp glass. Once Simon had cut away the remaining parts of the woman's clothing, you could see that there wasn't a hands width of her body that didn't have some kind of cut, abrasion or bruise on it. Several of them were very deep but most were merely ugly. The bloody leg that Mal had initially seen was actually bleeding from a compound fracture in that leg, the jagged portion of the bone protruding out through the skin just below the knee had prevented the blood from completely coagulating over the period of time since the crash. The woman's lower torso also had an ugly twist to it. Simon ventured that the lower part of her legs had become at some point become caught on some interior part of the pod, holding them in place while the top part of her body thrashed about. Apparently her head had been wrapped in her own hair and therefore somewhat more protected but the wound on the forehead and the already visible swelling and bruising to the rest of her face showed that it hadn't been protection enough.

As they worked, Book remarked that the fact that the pod was so full of other 'stuff' may have been what had saved the woman. Even with the injuries received from all the sharp edges, the fact that the pod had been so completely clogged with all sorts of items might have actually reduced the amount the woman had been thrown around. Then when the pod was automatically blown free from the ship right before the actual impact with the desert floor, the crash systems deployed making the pod even more cramped. Book guessed that between the two circumstances, the woman had survived the unsurvivable.

Ultimately, Simon with help from all of them, got the woman splinted and immobilized, taking care of her back and neck of course. In doing so, they were all able to see through all the blood and bruising that she was a fair skinned woman, probably in her mid-thirties. She was big as in tall, probably as tall as Zoe was and wherever they felt her torso and limbs as they moved her about, things were rock solid like an athlete. Mal tired to ignore the fact that . . . she had a rather substantial chest, more than revealed through her shredded clothing. He cast his feeling back to his days as a Browncoat sergeant and how he dealt with wounded members of his unit who just happened to be female.

While he did that, Simon, as he worked on all the visible injuries and took precautions against all the possible invisible ones, also had to deal with all the hair. It was thick, dark brown shiny silky stuff where it wasn't clogged with blood or debris. It seemed to be almost as long as the woman was. Much of it had become tangled in debris and structure within the pod. Despite his obvious reluctance to do so, Simon ruthlessly cut away the trapped ends while working to free her.

Finally, they pulled the woman out on the stretcher that Jayne had run back to _Serenity_ for. Jayne's face had . . . become exceedingly interested when he first saw her as Simon, Book and himself lifted her up, out and down even though Simon and Zoe had done their best to get the woman properly covered with a blanket.

They then headed back to the boat on the mule, Jayne driving with Mal and Simon perched on the trailer holding the stretcher. Upon reaching_ Serenity_, Mal and Jayne carried the stretcher aft to the Infirmary. There Mal left Simon and with Jayne returned to the crash site. Book returned to the boat on the next load but the rest of them Mal drove hard back at the site for his was determined to try to make _something_ out of the mess the situation had become by harvesting all of the scavenged parts, components, and metal that they had found just as quickly as they could.

Even as he knew that he was pushing their luck far, far beyond anything anyone had a right to expect.

They spent nearly three hours, the entire remainder of New Omaha's day in doing so. Dusk falling as Jayne drove the last load into the Cargo Bay. Mal hit the button to raise the ramp and close the Cargo Bay doors even as he directed Zoe to get the mule stowed and check to make sure that everything they had brought aboard was properly secured for space. He then told Wash and Kaylee via the intercom to be prepared for takeoff as soon as Zoe indicated the ship was ready.

It was then that with more than a certain amount of reluctance, he started up aft of the Cargo Bay through the hatch in toward the Infirmary.

Mal reached the level, stepping in and stopping.

Book, Inara and River were standing together in front of the closed infirmary doors. Book looked as if he was in deep prayer. Inara looked . . . stoic. River was staring with that piercing look she came up with at times, the tip of one finger was in her mouth being firmly bit. Taking this as an indication that things were not going well in the infirmary, Mal moved as quietly as he could to a point where he could see inside.

To see Simon, smeared with gore from head to toes, standing off next to the bed. In the bed was the woman—

Mal was glad that the soundproofed doors were closed. Mal's eyes clenched on the scene, once again not quite fathoming what it was that they were telling him. It looked as if Simon had placed a double set of restraints on the woman and even these she was pushing to their limits. Her whole body was in the throes of some of the most powerful seizures that Mal had ever seen. They surpassed his memories of those who were worked on by the field medics with no anesthesia. They even surpassed the withdrawal seizures that he had seen while in that hospital after his kidney wound where the only bed available for him had been in the addicts ward. The woman's body was convulsing so hard that blood was literally spitting from the few wounds that Simon had yet to bandage due to the massive muscle contractions.

At that moment, like a puppet with cut strings . . . the woman suddenly stopped flailing. Mal's eyes went to the monitor on the wall behind Simon—

Flatline. The woman was dead. Mal saw Simon move in on the body and start to quickly do things.

Mal knew that Simon had to do what he had to do. But for simplicities sake, he hoped that she was dead . . . something he felt with a sense of guilty relief. With the woman dead, they could dispose of the evidence and get away to safer space. He knew what he was thinking was for most folks wrong. But he had his ship and his people to worry about. And this woman could be nothing but trouble.

What he was trying _not_ to think about . . . was that he was glad the woman was dead because no one should suffer the way she had to be with seizures of that kind.

Mal then noticed . . . Simon wasn't trying to kick start her heart like he had expected. Mal could see that at some point he had stuck a breathing tube down the woman's throat and her naked, bloody torso was covered with sensor pads but Simon was not initiating the heart starter. Simon was definitely doing _something_ to her, Mal could see an IV (which looked as if it was _triple_ taped in place) as well as traction casts on both legs/ankles . . . it appeared as if Simon was at this moment trying to get the woman properly bandaged but he wasn't trying to do a restart—

Then the monitor behind Simon which was in Mal's line of sight . . . the flatline suddenly kicked up . . . jumped. In moments a rhythm was reestablished—

Even as Simon jumped back out of the way for the seizures came back with renewed vengeance.

"What is going on?" Mal asked himself.

Apparently he said it loud enough for Inara to hear him. She gave him a very unkind look (which told Mal that someone had told Inara that he had fought against bringing the woman aboard . . . even if it was _his_ ship) before saying, "her heart has been stopping on the order of every five to ten minutes." The Companion then looked back into the Infirmary saying with what sounded like a thankful voice, "which is an improvement for it when the seizures first started, her heart was stopping almost every other minute."

Inara took in a deep breath, then continued in that tight, challenging tone that Mal knew was directed at him even if Inara's eyes were elsewhere. "But the heart stoppages have never been longer than a minute. Which may or may not be a blessing. Her seizures are so violent that the only time Simon can do useful work on her is when she is . . . 'dead'." Now Inara's eyes came back to Mal, burning into him in accusation. "But even then . . . despite the many, many times this woman's heart has stopped . . . Simon has never been the one to restart it. _She_ is doing it. She is restarting her own heart with what has to be her will and her will alone . . . with maybe with some of God's (Inara gave a nod to the praying Shepherd) help." Even though he wasn't looking at her, Mal could feel Inara's _glare_ as she said, "this woman . . . whoever she is . . . is fighting to _live_ with everything in her—"

Mal heard unspoken in Inara's voice _and you would have left her to die_.

Mal got a sour taste in his mouth. His internal voice moved into an _I told you so_ mode. If nothing else changed, this was enough to tell him that he had acquired another problem that was going to totally screw his life up.

Mal's mouth opened as he started to say something to Inara—

"You'd better get up here Mal," came Wash's strained voice over the ships speaker.


	3. Caught

Chapter Three – Caught

Mal came onto the Bridge at a hustle, eyes moving rapidly from viewports, to scanner screens to the Pilot in his chair with the Pilot's wife, his First Mate standing uncomfortably by. Mal looked at the both of them, asking almost unnecessarily, "what is it?"

Zoe glanced at her husband even as he was hurriedly finishing his start up routine. The Pilot, in a subdued tone that denied his obvious haste told the Captain, "it seems that our long awaited company has finally decided to come to the party. Pity they couldn't have waited another half an hour, the hors d'oeuvres aren't ready."

Mal looked at the screens. "Where they at?"

Wash touched a control to start the playback from the passive sensors. "They're down through the atmo but they're still over the horizon. I'm not sure how long we've got but I'm almost positive that we're not going to get away unseen."

Mal glanced at the repeater on Wash's console. The image was similar to a Fed Predator Enforcement ship . . . except there were some additions and modifications that he didn't recognize. The Predator was a medium sized special mission's ship, almost a small corvette, usually carrying a crew of about thirty if it was in standard configuration. Its biggest asset was that it was a very fast ship, possibly, no, most certainly faster that they were at Hard Burn. If Wash was right—

The chances that Wash could outrun it was most certainly less than none. And unlike the Marshal's ship that had chased them down on St Albans, it more in likely was not crewed by a bunch of on-the-take clowns who could be bluffed off the trail by a few guns and a Shepherd telling them how things were.

So at the moment, running was out of the question. What did that leave?

"What's on the other side of this ridge?"

Wash looked up surprised and after a moment could only say, "another ridge?"

"Let's go see," Mal said softly. "Do it low and slow, not too much heat, at this point—"

"If we can get out of sight," Zoe added catching the drift of Mal's thoughts.

"Getting dark," Mal continued as his gaze moved to the viewports, a pointed finger wagging at the growing blackness outside, "They probably won't be able to miss all of our footprints but hopefully they won't see the tracks from the mule. If they do and come out this way," he looked down at Wash, their eyes meeting, "if you can do this with a little finesse, you won't lay down much of a burn mark and it'll have cooled by the time they get over for a look-see."

"You want some finesse, I'll give you some finesse," Wash said in a voice both tight with concentration and smug with his own self confidence as his hands` played on the throttles for the VTOL engines. Mal and Zoe didn't even fell _Serenity_ lift and come forward out from under the overhang but in the fading light the view outside of the port skewed around even as Wash cleared the top of the ridge—

To find a deep ravine just beyond.

* * *

The lighting in the Cargo Bay was shut down so no glow could leak out as the bay doors were open and the ramp dropped. It wasn't fully dark quite yet. Even so there wasn't much to see out of the open doors. The ravine the ship was sitting in was just wide enough to take the _Firefly_ without Wash having to scrape his knuckles getting in and out. In the last of the fading light, the ravine went off into the distance, twisting away out of sight to the left, slowly falling toward the distant dry creek that had originally taken the ancient long-evaporated water that had once upon a time created the ravine in the first place.

In the dim illumination of masked hand lamps, Jayne and Wash assisted getting safety harnesses onto Mal and Zoe. The Captain and First Mate did their own quick last minute checks of their gear as Jayne gathered several coils of rope. He headed out, down the ramp to finish setting up outside as the other two completed their checks. "Monitor the radio," the Captain was telling the Pilot. "If we scream real loud, that means that we've been spotted and you need to pop up and pick us up."

"And then run like hell," Wash added just loud enough to be heard.

Mal gave him a false smile before he looked to Zoe. He then reached up to adjust his night goggles even as he asked his First Mate, "ready to go climbin a sheer unfamiliar cliff in the dark without any light?"

Zoe flashed her husband a less-that-happy look before facing her her Captain, flashing him a very-much-false grin while telling him in a sweet tone, "I'd like to do nothin but," she then added, "except maybe wrestling a pseudogator in ten feet of mud."

Mal looked at Wash with an astonished expression. "I do believe that your wife isn't that enthusiastic about this little outing. How can that be?"

"Yeah, yeah," the Pilot said in an offhanded way. Mal turned to go out; Zoe turned her head for one last look back at him.

"_Zhu tamin ya min. Zhu yi_," he told her.

Zoe gave him a harassed smile before turning away.

They followed out in the direction that Jayne had gone. The Merc would anchor their ground line on the first part of their assent up the face cliff after the silenced harpoon gun placed their initial climb point. After the two of them started their way up, Jayne would then take a position in the ship at the bay doors and ramp should it be necessary for Wash to lift and pick up Mal and Zoe on the fly.

Wash watched them leave until they moved around the side of the hull out of sight. He then turned and headed back toward the Lounge Area. He intended to go up the rear ladder, then back forward through the Galley/Dining Area on his way to the bridge. It looked like it was going to be a real long evening and he was better with white-knuckled, by-the-seat-of-his-pants, running-headlong-from-danger flying if his stomach wasn't growling.

He found Book standing reading his bible in front of the Infirmary. Inara was there as well but she was seated in one of the lounge chairs with her head lowered in thought. Wash stopped and glanced in the Infirmary windows, grimacing at the amount of gore splattered about the normally spotless room.

Zoe had given him an extremely brief description of what the survivor was going through as they had been waiting for Mal to respond to the call to come to the Bridge. But seeing the reality brought home her words. Wash screwed his face up as he took it all in. He wondered—

"She's doing better I think."

Wash looked next to him at Book whose eyes were now up and looking into the Infirmary. "Really?" the Pilot asked as he looked back through the windows at Simon who was trying to clean up some of the blood off of the survivor. "I guess," Wash went on with a shake of his head, "any kind of an improvement is . . . an improvement."

"Her convulsions are lessening," Book told him with solid conviction. "Simon is able to do most of his work uninterrupted at this point. And her heart has not stopped in the last half an hour."

"Really?" Wash asked. "Any idea what happened?"

"By the look on the good Doctors face," Book responded, "I would say no. One can only hope that she continues to improve."

Wash shook his head. "Cut up like that, she's gonna be a real mess even if she makes it," he observed. "Considering what she probably did look like . . . well . . . I hope she'll be able to deal with it."

"That," Book said solemnly, "like her condition, is in the Lords hands."

Wash nodded, "a good place for it."

"Amen," agreed Book.

Wash headed aft then up the ladder. Where he met Kaylee coming down.

"Are you set?" the Pilot asked the Engineer.

"As set as I can be," she told him. She wasn't looking at him, she was looking down toward the Infirmary, her eyes kind of going wide as she saw all the—

"Is—is that all . . . blood?"

Wash put a gentle hand on her arm. "It's pretty gruesome Kaylee; you might not want to see until Simon manages to get it cleaned up a little."

Kaylee was pale and she took a breath against a rebelling stomach. "River told me it was pretty bad." She looked as if she wanted to say something else but couldn't.

Wash could guess what it was however. "There's nothing you can do to help," he told her. He then wagged his head toward the Shepherd, "unless you want to join in on your own with what Book is doing.

Kaylee looked uncomfortable at the thought. "Never been much of a prayin person since I came aboard," she said softly. "Don't seem right to start so late."

Wash nodded his understanding. "Yeah, but Book just might need all the help that he can get. That'd make you assisting him rather than doing it on your own. Might be a difference there."

Kaylee seemed to consider it for a moment, then simply replied, "yeah."

Wash started back up the ladder. After a moment, Kaylee turned to follow him. Her eyes went one last time from the Infirmary windows to the Shepherd.

"Yeah."

* * *

It was long past totally darkness by the time Mal and Zoe reached the top of the ridge. They were both sore and sweat soaked despite the dropping temperature and if they survived this experience, they were both going to be very sore in the morning.

If there was a next morning.

The two of them moved along the spine of the ridge toward the other side. As they did so, Zoe made one final attempt.

"Sir? Do you really think—?"

"Yes, I really think."

Zoe didn't say anything more after that. She had already expressed her doubts about the intelligence of risking their being seen but Mal had maintained that they could crawl to a point were only their heads would be visible to the crash scene five miles away and unless a really strong thermal unit was looking right at them, they should be okay.

This brought other thoughts to Zoe. She had to wonder at all the risks that were being taken by her Captain in the current situation. She knew that most of them had to be due to all the unusual circumstances they had faced in the last week—

Which she thought could be and probably was the answer. Zoe knew that Malcolm Reynolds was very protective of what he called 'his sky'. Protective to the point where Zoe sometimes believed his motives and beliefs that drove that protectiveness, emotions and convictions which arose from the wounds deep inside of him would someday result in his own downfall. But she had also learned over the years that Mal's intuition and what could only be called his 'luck' seemed to serve as a counterbalance. Somehow the two factors, convictions and luck put together, allowed the man to survive in situations when almost any other person would have been consumed by the circumstances they found themselves in.

It was apparent that Mal's intuition had been going full bore since the doomed ship had shown up on their passive sensors. It was making him do things that he might not do at other times. So far, the partnership with his luck had managed to pull him through. But that luck could be . . . sporadic . . . meaning that he didn't always come out smelling like a rose. Sometimes he might finish the run, surviving in the end but being shot full of holes and nearly dead like what had happened to him that one time with Patience on Whitefall.

But sporadic or not, Zoe had learned during the war to trust Mal's 'luck'. And as the same war had also earned him her loyalty, all she could do was go along for the ride, sometimes acting like the voice of his conscious for sure—

But it hadn't failed them yet.

At least . . . it hadn't _totally_ failed them—

Yet—

The two of them eventually found a cleft in a spine of the ridge and through it Mal had a good view of the site . . . and the distant lights of the grounded Fed ship.

To himself, Mal agreed with Zoe and under normal circumstances he would have been satisfied to set the passives out again and sit tight, even if they were exposed to Reavers and the rest of the whole gorram universe while sitting open to the sky at the bottom of the ravine they were currently in. But the strange and unusual outfitting of the Predator was bothering him as was the whole mystery of the unprecedented Alliance deployment to the _Qing Long_ sector, _as_ was the whole problem with the strange crash survivor. He told himself that he wanted to try to figure out if the ship they had seen shot down (and had just plundered) was the target of all the Fed attention or just some stray smuggler caught in a web meant for someone entirely different.

Mal had wondered briefly if the shot down ship had been transporting slaves as this would explain the tied up woman inside of an escape pod which _could_ have been quickly armed and ejected in order to 'hide the evidence'. But normally slavers didn't carry single captives in that fashion and given the lack of any bodies that didn't look like crew (and they had found several dressed like Central Worlds crew), Mal had conceded that this was unlikely. He supposed that the ship could have been at the end of its run with only the single 'slave' on board but somehow it didn't strike him as right being that the crew was dressed like Central Worlds rather than spacers or Independents.

Regardless of all his speculation and the primary reason why he had insisted on this little journey in darkness was that he was hoping that the intensity . . . or lack of same put into the search of the crash site by those on the Fed ship would be a very visible clue giving him an indication of whether or not he needed to be worried. He suspected that if whoever these guys were, if they were tearing the wreck apart and turning over every stone, that he just might have to do what Zoe had thrown into his face and dump all the stuff they had just taken aboard along with everything they already had aboard and light out like a burned colt.

But he also wished in an almost desperate way that he could be a fly on the wall in and among those strange folks out there. Because there was one piece of 'wreckage' that he and his crew had just recovered that he couldn't get rid of. If only there was a way that he could tell if the crew of the Fed ship were cussin out the fact that they couldn't find a certain woman—

Mal brought the magnifiers up in low light mode and looked out through the cleft at the distant lights. The fact that Deadwood, the planet that New Omaha orbited was at mid phase spilling light on the scene helped.

"Predator type aright," he muttered softly to his Mate who had her head looking over his shoulder. He studied it for another long moment before, "not a Marshal . . . too clean." He finished a long, probing look before he pulled himself slightly out of the way while handing the magnifiers over to Zoe.

She took her own long look before saying, "whoever they are, they're not in any kind of Fed uniform either."

Mal nodded his head. "I noticed that. But they're not sloppy like so many of the Marshals. They look sharp and squared away even if they're dressed like normal folks . . . or at least normal Fed folks."

"Some kind of pros then," Zoe muttered before she dropped the magnifiers to look at her Captain's black silhouette. "Does this answer any of your questions?"

Mal shrugged his shoulders even if she couldn't see it in the blackness. "No, but it can cause some speculatin."

"Such as?" Zoe asked as she brought the magnifiers back up.

"We were right in thinkin that the reason why the cruiser didn't send any one down to look see was that they had orders not to. Whoever these guys are, they wanted it all to themselves."

"And that," Zoe carried on, "would speak that they're fairly high up in the food chain if a cruiser Captain was sufficiently worried or intimidated enough not to take a look for himself."

"Somethin like that," Mal agreed. "Since most cruiser captains don't intimidate all that easily, we can assume that these boys' horsepower is somewhat substantial."

"So . . . " Zoe asked quietly, "does this change your plans at all?"

"I'm . . . not sure—" Mal started.

"They just found the pod."

Mal heaved himself back up as Zoe handed him the magnifiers. It took Mal almost a minute to find what Zoe had seen. He cursed himself silently for he hadn't even considered looking if they were searching the debris field. He figured that that would wait until dawn. That had to mean that they really were looking hard for something and Mal didn't like the thought of just what that something might be.

With the distance involved, it was hard to find where all the activity was for he was having to look for the moving beams of their flashlights among all that open space. When he finally found them, he was just in time to see two of the unknown pros standing on top of the pod with a third one rising up out of its interior handing up something to those above him.

Mal zoomed in to maximum, a difficult view due to the strain that it was putting on the compensator in the magnifier to keep what he was seeing from shaking due to the distance. Mal held his breath and tired to will his hands from even the most minute trembling. Despite that, he only got a moments clear view . . . but it was enough for him to curse under his breath.

"What?" asked Zoe.

"They found the rags of her clothing," Mal told his Mate in a hard voice.

There was an uncomfortable silence as the both of them took in the implications of this. Implications all the more real when Mal realized as he pulled the view back, that whoever these guys were, they were now scanning the ground around the pod—

And all the footprints there. For it was plain as day that _someone_ had to have been at the pod prior to these guys arrival to remove whoever had worn those bloody rags.

"We couldn't leave her sir," Zoe said with a defensive tone to her voice. There was also an emphasis to her 'sir' that passed to him her memory/feelings towards their history in the war together and their unspoken vow never to leave anyone alive behind.

All that did was make Mal angry again—

But he didn't snap at her for deep inside he knew that she was right. The problem was how to survive their current situation—

Cause by the look of things, things were libel to get interesting for the search for tracks had started in earnest. He had to consider . . . would his initial thoughts prove to be right, they would trace the mule tracks back to the hiding spot _Serenity_ had just left whereas they would think that whoever had been there was now long gone—

If not, the 'hole' his boat currently sat in was as complete and total a trap as any.

Mal thought for a moment about having Wash take off right now. Whoever these guys were, they were spread out over a mile long crash trail. Surely some of them were needed for the ships operation so the Predator wouldn't take off until they had all managed to get back aboard. Wash could Hard Burn right out of the atmo—

And then once in open space, the Predator would just run right up their rear end; maybe just put a missile there like they had the other ship.

But seeing them now, Mal agreed with Zoe that these guys were top flight pros. They would find _Serenity_ because they would check under every rock for ten miles around the crash site. Even now, as he watched, a ground cruiser came into his view and started to move around, big lights illuminating the ground ahead of it looking for tracks.

Mal knew that was the last straw.

* * *

Wash was still on the Bridge, Kaylee was still in the Engine Room, Jayne was still waiting out on the ramp, Simon was still in the Infirmary. That left—

Inara couldn't really concentrate as she tried to put together some kind of meal for herself, River and Book. They could all feel the tension. It wasn't as . . . devastating as say, the knowledge that Reavers were close by but considering what the Alliance had done to the doomed ship, they couldn't help but wonder if something all too similar was waiting for them. The fact that their Captain was acting . . . so much outside of character, risking so much for something that only he could apparently see—

Inara took some comfort in the fact that Zoe was as of this point going along with what her Captain was doing. Inara had heard from Kaylee about the confrontation over the discovery of the survivor in the pod. The fact that it had taken both Zoe and Book to pound some sense into Mal—

But Inara had to admit to herself, she was at a loss to wonder just why Mal was doing what he was; doing things like hanging around which endangered them while at the same time getting ready to kill a helpless woman even though it was Mal's own actions had caused it to almost happen in the first place—

"Because he has too—" River said cryptically.

Inara gave the girl a look. She liked to feel that she understood the 'special' girl a little better that most of those aboard. But at the same time, she did feel . . . very uncomfortable with the idea of someone being able to 'read' her . . . especially considering some of the various thoughts she often had due to the current situation between the Companion and _Serenity's_ Captain.

In response to the Inara's look, River, who had been and was still intently looking down at a pad of paper on which she was making strange flowing marks, "something is telling him to do what he's doing. He can't help it."

The Companion continued to look at the girl. Was what River was saying mean that Mal—

"A hunch," River went on as if picking up Inara's own train of thought. "A guess, a feeling, premonition, sixth sense—"

"Do you think," the Shepherd asked, joining the conversation, "that he's doing the right thing?" River looked up . . . confused . . . her concentration broken . . . then her head snapped around toward—

"I'd say not," came Mal's voice as he came in through the hatch from the forward companionway. River came to her feet facing the Captain as both Inara and Book looked over with equal concern.

Zoe and Jayne followed Mal in. The Captain and the Mate were both dirty, scraped and sweaty but it was the Mate and the Merc that looked uncomfortable. The Captain looked merely grim.

Mal gave a glance back at Zoe and Jayne before turning and speaking to the rest in the Dining area, "Zoe and I saw what we needed to see. Soon as Wash and Kaylee get here—"

At that point, the Engineer came in through the after hatch having been called via the Cargo Bay intercom when the group which had been outside came back aboard. With a hesitant look on her face, she moved over toward the dining table, coming to stand by the Shepherd as if his proximity might give her some comfort. The sound of steps behind her brought Zoe's head around as her husband came in from the Bridge. He moved over next to her, wrapping a protective arm around her waist. Everyone then looked to their Captain—

"I'm not gonna ask Simon to come up."

"Don't think that he would anyway," Kaylee stating what she thought was the obvious.

Mal looked . . . a little angry at that. It took a visible effort to rein that in before addressing everyone in the Dining Area.

"We're humped. Pure and simple," he told them all frankly. "The only thing to do is run. It ain't pretty, it ain't gonna be fun."

Everyone took this in. They really didn't react as they had already come to their own conclusions. They waited—

Mal gave them all a look—

* * *

It was getting close to the local midnight upon this particular stretch of New Omaha's scrub. The Predator had been on the ground for hours and those who were out and about the crash scene were as of this point, as satisfied as they could be with the way the investigation was progressing. That wasn't to say that they were 'happy' with things. On the contrary, they were less than happy about some of the circumstances they had found on their arrival and the verbal bitching and moaning among the entire group of searchers made that fact plain.

The initial discovery made upon their physical arrival at the wreck was that they were not the first ones to be there. Numerous footprints of various sizes and length of stride showed that multiple someone's had been at the site before them. The Predators Commander had made several off-color comments about the idiocy of the Alliance Navy and the fact that considering the heavy deployment to the _Qing Long_ system, why the navy had declared it 'impossible' to maintain at least one of the Alliance vessels in orbit to keep the wreck under surveillance. Anyone who had spent any time enforcing the laws of the Alliance knew that there were too many examples of scum such as scavengers and brigands always about and just because the Alliance Admiral in charge of the deployment wanted to have a temper tantrum because his schoolboys had been told to keep their distance from their 'kill' should not have been an excuse not to do a competent job. The Commander had already sent off a communication to a higher level of authority in reference to this but the damaged was done.

A check of the immediate area by a foot sweep found no evidence of an outsider landing anywhere close to the wreck. That could only mean a site further out into the desert. However, due to the lack of the desert surfaces ability to hold onto any kind of heat, infrared tracking had been useless. But even hard desert surface could yield clues to those who knew how to look. It had taken a little bit longer but the searchers had found something better.

Whoever the scum had been, they had been using a wheeled vehicle. Despite attempts to hide its tracks, a wide sweep by the ground cruiser had located intermittent prints in areas of soft soil headed toward the north. Although the tracks were vague and spotty, the fact that all of them seemed to be heading directly toward a bluff about five miles distant indicated that some point in that direction would be the actual landing spot. A flyby of the bluff itself with a probe showed that the formation was hollowed out, indented, and it would have hidden a small ship from overhead observation. Such a profile was recognized as a typical scavenger maneuver so the bluff as well as the entire area around it merited a close physical check as a matter of course.

The ground cruiser was being careful with its search regardless for scavengers where known to be sneaky with multiple false trails and such so the search was broad despite the preponderance of the evidence leading toward that bluff. At the moment, the ground cruiser was within a half mile of the suspected spot and as no other trail had been located along the entire arc north of the crash site, the cruisers senior technician was requesting permission to go directly to the suspected area after they completed their current arc of search.

The Commander gave his assent.

Forensic equipment had been deployed out onto the site but as of yet no definitive evidence had been gathered from the actual wreck. Bodies had been found out in the desert to either side of the line-of-impact; they were being dealt with. Equipment had located several places within the wreck of what checked out to be human remains. However, in most cases, there would be very little that could be called 'recognizable' but given modern DNA technology and its applications in law enforcement, 'a little went a long way'.

Meanwhile, the crew working on the located pod which had apparently held a body (alive or dead) had just about emptied the thing out, being careful due to the quantity of blood that had been inside of it. The found ruined clothing had been bagged and tagged, samples of the blood taken and like the others within the wreck, were run via the Cortex. Tentative identifications had been made from the remains found in the desert and within the wreck but the sample from the pod had failed to make a match on any known persons.

That hardly mattered to the Commander. He and his crews briefing on this mission told them that they were simply looking for any and all persons found. Such persons, it didn't matter if they were alive or dead, whole or piecemeal, were to be, even after the preliminary identification, recovered, isolated, and taken directly to the Central Worlds and the government labs there.

The ground cruiser was about to reach the undercut under the bluff.

The heads of all the searchers jerked up and around as night on the north horizon lit up with a star rising from the hills there. Two eye piercing spots of white light hove up over the ridge in that direction. Almost a half a minute later, the far-off roar of engines came to their ears, changing pitch even as it did, the points of iridescence turning and fleeing off out of their sight. But the men who were searching the crash site were already hustling back toward their ship. Over their calls and yells, they could hear their own vessels engines winding up.

A couple looked over into the distance to check on the lights of the ground cruiser. It had already turned around and was rushing back to be with them. It seemed obvious that with the search getting too close to their hidey hold, the Rogues were attempting to flee in the air rather than getting trapped on the ground.

As the men reached the open ramp on their vessel, they were all making jokes about how that Rogue was going to get its ass shot off and how they hoped that it would at least give the pilots and weapons crews a challenge rather than being an easy shot. It was perhaps disappointing to those who had already entered the vessel or who were in close under its flank that they were unable to see the vessels top turret suddenly swivel and belch a single interceptor with a bright flare of ignition. Those on the side facing where the Rogue had fled were at least able to see the trail of the deadly hound dog which screamed off over the horizon seeking the fleeing Rogue.

All of the men relayed annoyed sounds when their commander ordered that the ground cruiser be brought aboard and properly stowed before the vessel lifted off. They were of course caught up in the heat of the chase and didn't want to wait. But they were pros and did as was ordered. They did exercise their constitutionally protected right to bitch loudly about how they were not in any position to see the interceptor strike the Rogue. They all knew that when it did, there would be very little left.

It was over ten minutes before they got airborne. In that time, the telemetry from the interceptor told of a solid hit. So the Commanders orders to the pilots were not to burn the paint going after a target already destroyed.

They followed the track of the interceptor, its single, thin white trail. Two hundred miles from its launch point, it turned sharply toward the west. This was the point where its own internal seekers had obtained a lock on the target.

Almost six hundred and fifty miles beyond that, a huge cloud of black smoke started where the trail of the interceptor stopped. Right before the black cloud, the missiles white trail corkscrewed around as if the target was frantically maneuvering to avoid a hit.

A forlorn hope.

A scan of the ground showed a debris field of hot metal and ceramic but nowhere near enough to account for a ship the size of the one they had seen. But a trail of black smoke pointed like an arrow to the west, hard evidence of a telling hit and a burning ship. They followed the trail, confident of what they would find at the end.

That end was at the southern reaches of New Omaha's one small sea. The trail of smoke went right into the water fifteen miles off of the southeast shore. More debris floated amid the churned and turbulent water (a huge expanding circle of disturbed water was racing off in all directions) from where something massive had dropped like a stone into that same water. Some of the debris within that impact area were still burning from floating oil and fuel.

The Predator was not equipped for a water search. So it hovered for half an hour, scanning for bodies or survivors. After that point, it turned about, taking its disappointed crew back to the original crash site. It would finish its check there and look at the place where the doomed ship had hidden itself while calling one of its mates which was equipped for underwater search. The crew was . . . a little miffed about not actually being in of the kill, but they were happy that they would get credit for it anyway. They were pros and this kind of thing was a part of their life.


	4. Trick

A/N: I want to take a moment to thank RionaEire and Oxnate for their friendly and consistent Reviews and PM's letting me know how it's going along and pointing out little errors. The time and attention is much appreciated.

* * *

Chapter Four – Trick

"This ain't gonna work." Jayne yelled for what seemed like the tenth time. Mal, in the confined space of the airlock could barely hear him over the crashing shudder of his ship caused by Wash doing flat-out-way-over-the-safety-limit run through the atmo. If this had been a terrestrial planet rather than a thin skinned moon, they would have probably burned up from overloaded heat shields. As it was, he and Jayne could hardly talk over the screaming noise as _Serenity's_ structure cried out against the abuse of it.

Even so Mal yelled back at the Merc, "you didn't have any better ideas," emphasizing his point by cinching the ropes about Jayne's hips and legs _hard_.

The Merc yelled, "hey! Watch the jewels!"

Mal cinched again, yelling back, "since you have no faith in my plain, don't worry about it cause you won't need 'em!"

"Mal!" Wash's voice called in through his headset, "incoming at twenty miles. We need to do this NOW!"

Mal snapped the ropes holding Jayne into the lock tackle then snapped his own belt harness into the hard pads next to the ladder. His eyes met Jayne's as he called into his headset, "we're set Wash, on your mark!" The both of them then grabbed on to something really solid.

The Pilot's hands were white on both the control yoke and the vector throttles as he started to jerk and jink and spin and snap in what appeared to be a desperate effort to shake off a pursuer that couldn't be shaken. Wash's eyes were glued to his screens, his mouth open as he sucked in air for what might be his last breath. His head started to bob in conjunction with a mental countdown as the blip on the screen, racing after him, twisting around in reaction to his violent maneuvering. As his head continued to bob, his eyes watched that blip as it came across the screen to where it was just about join with the blip that was _Serenity_—

"Hang on everyone!" Wash yelled as his hands jerked straight back on yoke and jammed the throttle quadrant forward—

_Serenity_ reared up on its tail going 70 degrees nose high even as the VTOL engines spun about in full reverse thrust. It was like the ship hit a rock wall as its forward velocity _jammed_ down toward zero while simultaneously the ship itself dropped like a stone that had hit a wall—

The interceptor screamed over her, missing the high nose by yards. The missile executed a preprogrammed maneuver, arching up sharply to loop up and over in an attempt to reacquire its target.

Which was still dropping like a dead bird. Wash's hands worked the VTOL controls and the maneuvering thrusters, the ship twisting 180 degrees about as it dropped, the nose coming down as _Serenity_ reoriented. They had lost most of their forward momentum but not all of it. What was left Wash was using to fly _backwards_ along the original direction of flight while the VTOLs screamed to stop the downward plunge. The missile reached the top of its loop having lost most of its speed in the maneuver trading, as all ballistic flight machines did, altitude for speed. It came over the top, its seeker looking for the shape of the Firefly—

Which was far, far down below it, flattening out with most of its forward momentum gone, a sitting duck—

A rock steady platform—

On its dorsal, the airlock hatch was wide open. Jayne Cobb was just settling himself out on the hull in front of it, using the open hatch as a bench rest point for his sniper rifle, its sight set to pick out of the dark night sky and lock onto the skin of the missile made red hot in the infrared by its hypersonic passage through the atmo.

Jayne knew that he would have only one shot. The sight compensated for any and all movement of the target as well as the ballistics of the explosive bullet but only he could select the moment when the trigger was pulled.

Mal was halfway out of the hatch as well, holding tight to Jayne's safety harness which was tied around the Merc's legs and hips leaving his upper torso free to work the rifle. Mal wanted to scream at Jayne to shoot but he knew that only one man could take the shot.

In the Cargo Bay, Zoe, Book, Inara and River were pulling themselves back to their feet and unhooking their own harnesses which had kept them from being thrown bodily around the hold from the escape and breaking maneuvers. They knew that at this moment that they were still alive but they had no idea how long that would last. Inara and Book, wearing heavy gloves started to yank attached electrical cables off of the pile of all the metal/ceramic/junk debris they had brought on board from the wreck along with anything else that had been handy within the ship that could be thrown into the pile. The whole thing was covered by a net and set in the middle of the Bay floor just back from the doors. Companion and Shepherd continued with their task as River helped Zoe connect the First Mates safety harness into a different set of tackle before they both started to free the tie downs that held the mule—

Kaylee, bruised and battered in the small space of the Engine Room was with deliberate haste working on her part of the plan. She wasn't sure if that plan was going to work but it wasn't because her part failed.

Wash watched his screens, slowly adding power/tilting the aspect of the VTOLs causing _Serenity_ to slowly build up her _backwards_ speed along her original flight path now that he had managed to arrest their downward fall. He did this even as every pore of his being screamed that he should firewall the throttles in an attempt to outmaneuver the missile that was now starting down—

Outside on the hull, the wind from the boat's velocity was rising, ripping at the two men clinging there. Mal was about out of patience, why wouldn't Jayne shoot—

Jayne watched the missile grow, he was waiting for—

The front of the missile in his scope _glowed_! Its laser seeker had the ship!

He took the shot.

The concussion rocked the ship. But it was the signal for—

Zoe, perched on the mule hit the throttle. It pushed forward and into the netted pile of metal/ceramic/garbage. Book, although thrown sideways by the shock wave managed to hold onto the control panel enabling him to hit the controls for the Cargo Doors.

The doors opened, the ramp lowered . . . as Zoe pushed the pile, which was blistering hot from all the electrical current which had been run through it out toward the sky. Behind her both River and Inara were holding onto her safety harness, River working frantically to get it into a fixed block on the deck, Inara trying not to think about whether River knew what she was doing because the Companion certainly did not and thought them all mad for believing that Mal's idea would really work.

Wash had the boat doing almost sixty in reverse, while at the same time he dropped the nose 15 degrees . . . 20 degrees . . . the 'downward' dip was to allow gravity to help with what his wife down in the Cargo Bay was trying to do. Zoe was almost all the way out onto the ramp, holding onto the mule for dear life as both slipstream and that same gravity threatened with increasing force to pull her toward infinity and death. The net with the hot debris hit the slip stream, lurching out, tethers holding the inside portion of the net forcing the rest of it to open up/billow out, all of its contents spilling out into the air which when combined with the boats reverse speed and altitude would cause those red hot contents to scatter and fall just like the wreckage from a hit.

Even as the VTOL engines started to belch huge amount of black smoke from the oil lines that Kaylee rerouted into the fuel lines.

Zoe tired to put the mule into reverse as the suction/gravity threatened to pull both her and the machine out after the debris. Its rubber tired shrieked in protest against the dual forces tearing at it. Zoe cried into her headset something that no one could hear. Even Book back by the door controls had to hang on against the pull.

In moments the nose came up and the speed braked. Zoe slammed the mule into reverse, Book hitting the door controls as she bounced across the threshold. "Clear!" Zoe shouted into her headset, relief on her face for she hadn't been sure if her husband could hear her over the noise.

Wash was already turning _Serenity_ back around as Kaylee crossed the wires causing the VTOL engines to go 'Crazy Ivan", the whiplash effect tossing everyone about, the black smoke pouring from the VTOLs causing a huge blossom of black in the sky. As he fought the bucking beast, Wash glanced at a panel which showed that the dorsal hatch was still open. "Mal! Jayne! Get in, max accel coming on!"

Mal was only now getting Jayne back into the hatch. The concussion of the missile had flung the Merc off of the hull, only his harness saving him. Mal had tried to pull Jayne in but they had been hindered by the fact that the Merc would not drop his rifle. Despite Mal's curses, Jayne had only one hand to work with, cursing Mal back just as hard until—

The two of them almost fell down into the airlock but Mal was able to hit the hatch control. "We're in Wash! Go!"

As the two of them felt the acceleration come on, they glared at each other . . . until they both started to laugh.

Mal keyed his headset, "everyone alright?"

* * *

Mal was alone in the Dining Area, listlessly eating a meal by himself. He wasn't sure which part of it all made him more worried or angry. What he did know was that he had one unhappy crew and that he was one most unhappy Captain.

After their destruction of the missile, Wash had flown to and out over New Omaha's small sea to a point where he actually dipped the lower hull into the water. They had opened the Cargo Bay doors and had dumped all of the rest of the stuff that they had salvaged (or at least the stuff that could float) along with a couple of barrels of oil and fuel (which was both 'spread out' and ignited by the VTOL engines). The last thing to go into the water was a single crate from their 'other' cargo. At soon as it hit, Mal had been yelling into his comm causing Wash to take off for the far shore because they certainly didn't want to be over the spot moments later. Mal knew that his client wouldn't like the fact that he had used that clients thousand pounds of Central World's best black-market-from-Badger-himself mining explosives to create a big hole in the water of New Omaha's sea but in this case Mal was willing to take the loss in exchange for the visible expanding 'crash wave' that was spreading out from the 'crash site'.

Wash had then flown the hundred miles to the seas far shore and had found a shore side forest with trees high enough to conceal them from everything but direct overhead observation. They had gone dark and cold again holding their collective breath. No one relaxed until Wash's passive sensors had shown that the Predator had come and gone.

Wash had then flown low and slow up the west boarder of the sea until they were near the mining settlement at the north end. He then 'launched' up into normal flight paths and from there away from New Omaha. They had all taken in the fact that while they did this, they didn't see a single Fed ship or patrol, which only made their speculation about the woman in the pod even more pointed.

Despite the fact that they had gotten away with it, Mal made his feelings very clear that he had thought the whole episode entirely unnecessary considering to how outclassed they had been and how close they had come to losing everything. Jayne of course had come in on his side . . . which hadn't helped the rest of the crew's reactions one bit. Despite the success of it all, everyone was clearly angry at his attitude which made _Serenity's_ Captain even more unhappy because it was _their_ safety and welfare that he was trying to concentrate on and he repeated this repeatedly.

Not that it made any impression on any of them.

Nor did it keep any of them from reminding him . . . pointedly and repeatedly . . . that it had been _his_ decision to hang around to get caught by the Fed ship anyway.

It was now a day out from New Omaha in route to New Canaan and their destination, its moon Lilac (which was on the opposite side of _Qing Long_ system from Deadwood), following the legal shipping routes at the correct speeds to reach the planet where they could at last drop off their other 'cargo'. After that, Mal intended to the the gorram out of _Qing Long_ and back to more hospitable parts of The Verse where they could find a job and keep flying.

Mal could sense that everyone . . . was at the moment avoiding him. He told himself that it didn't bother him. He knew that he his mood was rotten and he felt that since no one saw things his way that they would just have to live with him being rotten for a while.

A noise made him look up. Zoe was just coming into the Dining Area. He could tell as she came to an almost position of attention before him that she was . . . still ticked with him. That . . . bothered him more than anything . . . not that he wanted to admit it.

"Simon would like to see you in the Infirmary . . . sir," his First Mate told him coolly.

Mal looked back down to his plate, shaking his head in an annoyed way. "He can come up here if'n he wants to see me," was his reply.

"He's not going to leave his patient . . . sir," came Zoe's even cooler reply.

Only Mal's eyes looked up at Zoe. She could see the simmering anger in him starting to come to the surface again.

"You could have handed it better . . . sir," she told him in a flat voice.

"And all of you could have followed orders," was his slightly snappish reply.

Zoe looked . . . unmoved. In fact her features/tone didn't change one bit. She just told him, "I have to say that I agree with your estimation as to a very real possibility of what this woman is and the problems that she could bring us. But . . . would leaving her to die—"

"Don't say _anything_ about how our refusing her help would just be like something the Alliance would do _and_ how that was one reason why we fought against them," Mal said with some heat. "The first fact is that now that we have her . . . what do we do with her?" Mal's eyes flashed, his annoyance now turning to the anger he had been holding in. "The second is that we're usin resources for her in the Infirmary that we're gonna be hard pressed to replace cheaply. I'd rather have the medical supplies for our people than have them used up on a stranger."

"Would you say that," Zoe asked with a pointed look, "if she had been a kid? A little girl?"

Mal threw one hand away with his own frustration as he snapped, "she not! And even if she was a little girl, if we found her tied up in a disabled escape pod in a ship downed by an Alliance cruiser I'd still hesitate. What the hell is going on here Zoe? Neither one of us knows and now we have _another_ total unknown on our hands. Kidnap? Ransom? Industrial Espionage? Old scores to settle? Someone who maybe needs an example made out of them? A double cross or maybe a triple cross on the part of so-in-so. We don't _know_ and the last thing we need right now is to be in the middle of someone else's turf war, screw-up or 'political incident'. We've enough problems with Simon and River. When they came aboard, that had to be the worst couple of days we ever had. Almost cost Kaylee her life. We don't need more of that kind of thing happenin."

"So you would have killed her . . . right there . . . out of hand because you 'don't know'?" Zoe's voice was completely flat, both of them knowing very well just how many people Mal had emotionlessly 'killed out of hand' in their time together.

Mal looked at her for the longest moment, then turned away with a low, hard, "I . . . I thought about it . . . but . . . no—"

"And leaving her in the condition she was in?" Zoe prodded. "You'd of been more merciful if you'd shot her."

"She's not our responsibility," was his sullen reply.

"As the Shepherd said . . . sir . . . she became our responsibility the moment _you_ saw the pod," was her quiet rejoinder. "We both know that. And just like the hand we were handed when we picked up Simon and River, we have to run with it and see how it plays out." Zoe cocked her head the other way and asked softly, "if we had lit out without her . . . how would you be feeling right now?"

"A lot safer," was his snorted reply. Mal could feel the glare from Zoe just increase in intensity. "And . . . " he had to admit after a moment, "I guess I'd be pretty miserable about myself as well." The funny thing was, that since he had admitted it to Zoe, meant that he also admitted it to himself. Because he hadn't realized that he had been trying so hard not to have that thought, the sudden revelation accounted for the sourness in his mouth and stomach. _So much for denying denial_ he thought. What he _did_ deny was that feeling deep in his gut . . . that feeling that had ultimately kept him from shooting the woman. The feeling that told him—

"I agree," Zoe told him softly breaking into his thoughts, "that if she lives . . . we're going to have to be very careful about how we deal with her. The fact that we . . . saved her life (said with a most pointed non-look at Mal) may help us more than we know right now. The thing is to do as we always try to do. Look and listen and not go jumping where we can't see to land."

"Fine," Mal muttered. "Let's hope that some good comes outta this because right now all I see is trouble. Whoever those pros who were lookin for her are, they've probably know or they're gonna know they've been had when they don't find our wreckage. That'll mean that they'll know that we got away and we got her. And they don't strike me as the type to give up for quite a piece. We may have bought ourselves a whole heap of trouble."

"We probably have," his First Mate agreed. "But let's hope not. Only time will tell. Right now . . . sir, Simon wants to see you. And I think that Kaylee and River could stand to see you a little less blood thirsty . . . sir."

"Yeah, right," was his reply to that.

* * *

"You wanted to see me?"

Simon looked over as Mal stepped into the Infirmary. Despite his own problems with what was happening, Mal still felt a stab of concern over the drawn, stressed features that made up the Doctors face—not that Mal intended to let anyone know that.

"Ah . . . yes I did," Simon managed looking back away because he could see just how much the Captain saw of everything that was wrong at the moment. Fortunately for him, once he walked in, the Captains eyes were on the form on the treatment table.

The convulsions had lessened considerably but they were still there. The woman's head, shoulders, limbs were all in motion with small, little constant jerks and quirks that had no pattern. It was rather unsettling to watch for any period of time but somehow the Captain couldn't take his eyes off of her.

"How's she doin?" Mal asked, his concern more for Simon than the woman even if he didn't let it show in tone or face.

"I . . . " Simon had to take a deep breath before going on, " . . . I honestly don't know."

Mal waved a hand at the twitching form. "Do you know what's happenin?"

Simon could only look at the woman with something akin to frustration. "I have neither seen nor heard of anything like this before. I've run what tests we're capable of on everything I can think of, even things that we haven't seen in centuries like epilepsy. I can't find a single thing to explain what happened."

"Exactly what _did_ happen?" Mal asked.

"I _don't_ know," Simon exclaimed looking like he wanted to throw up his hands in frustration. "We got her laid out. I gave her a dose of anesthesia and pain killer, did the setting of the compound fracture and did a quick scan of the rest of her bones; her pelvis is fractured by the way and the joints in her legs and ankles –" Simon had to stop and reorganize his thoughts as he was going off on a tangent—

"I . . . was kind of waiting," he said with an angry shake of his head. "As I said, I gave her the anesthesia and pain killer first thing because I didn't want her to suffer more than she already had of course but I also didn't want the pain of setting the bone and weaving the wound; that compound leg would is what she had the largest blood loss out of . . . " he hesitated again, clearly forcing himself to return to the main subject.

"I didn't want there to be a chance of the pain from setting the leg driving her to consciousness," Simon said . . . and it sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. "But . . . from the moment I gave her the first two doses . . . it was like her body immediately started to—"

Simon looked at Mal as if he was trying to make himself understand, "it was almost as if the drugs I put in her, simple, regular anesthesia and pain narcotic . . . you could see her skin; it started to . . . it was twitching like horses flicking off flies . . . and it was slowly getting worse."

Simon looked back down at the form before him. "I suddenly realized that it was like she was going into some kind of shock . . . not from the wounds or from being moved or even my setting the bone . . . but it was like she was having an allergic reaction to the doses I had given her . . . that the anesthesia and the pain killer was actually driving her reactions higher rather than calming them. In response to that, if it was an allergic reaction . . . I gave her a dose of broad spectrum allergy serum . . . and all hell broke loose."

Simon shook his head as if doubting his own summation, doubting it because, "something like that should be impossible. These meds have been in use for centuries, on every planet and moon, in every way and situation throughout The Verse." He looked at Mal allowing the Captain to see just how upset/confused/mystified he was. "But something happened. I don't have any idea what it was . . . but something very unusual happened and—" Simon looked back at the shaking woman in the bed, "whatever happened . . . I have to think that it happened because I gave her the meds." There was a catch in Simon's throat before he could say, "she's going through all this pain and suffering because I . . . tried to help her."

Mal gave him an uncompromising snort. "You're the one who said he had to help her," he told Simon with no feeling in his voice, ignoring the angry stare the Doctor instantly gave him."

"I didn't _know_," Simon snapped back, angry at himself that he had expected some sympathy and understanding from the Captain. "How could I know? I told you that I've never heard of anything like what has happened."

Mal snorted again. "Well, maybe the next time you find a hogtied woman in a disabled escape pod from a ship shot down by an Alliance cruiser you'll have second thoughts about jumpin in with both feet."

The glare he was getting just got hotter, making Mal all the angrier when he remembered glares from Zoe and Inara. "So what did you want to tell me?" he asked Simon in a condescending tone.

Simon's back was to him in a sign of rejection. The Doctor didn't even turn his head. "You have everything I thought you as the Captain should know. So . . . since none of it matters to you . . . I heartily apologize for wasting your valuable time by asking you down here. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to try to make sense of something that makes no sense."

Mal gave a third snort as he turned and headed out of the infirmary. "Fine, knock yourself out. But I expect an accountin of everything you use and it'll be up to you to figure out how to replace it all."

Mal felt an even fiercer glare on his back as the doors closed behind him.

* * *

The next day they reached the moon Lilac—

Mal, Jayne and Zoe loaded the last of the consignment into the lorry. Their client had been more sympathetic than Mal had expected. His sympathy had been based on the reports of a massive Alliance deployment out to the Blue Sun and multiple ships being stopped and boarded with many searched and seized in _Qing Long_ space over the previous six weeks. So their client turned out to be most happy that any of his consignment had made it through in one piece. He did withhold a quarter of the payment owned Mal at Mal's request as compensation for his loss. Due to Mal's honesty, forthrightness and willingness to take the hit for the . . . unexpected use of the explosives, the client told them all that he would be happy to hire _Serenity_ again in similar circumstances.

Mal had divvied out portions of the payment immediately to Wash (fuel and consumables), Kaylee (parts and equipment) and Book (food and stores) with instructions to make quick work of it. He wanted to be back off planet within hours.

That of course . . . did not sit well with a certain ambassador. Inara was much more that a little ticked with _Serenity's_ Captain over the events of the prior days so she made a sudden, last minute appointment with a client on New Canaan's other moon, Ugarit and had gone off to keep it. When Mal had found out, he had not been happy. Inara's reaction to _that_ was simply that she took off in her shuttle after growling in Mal's face that she would be back when she was _DONE_ with her client and she would _NOT_ be rushed.

As Mal could not afford to be without a shuttle, he had no choice but to hang around. But—

* * *

_How long do you plan to keep this up?_

The words spoke within Inara's head for the fourth time as the last of the atmo of Ugarit faded away in the viewport of her shuttle becoming the blackness of space. She had never known herself to be so torn . . . fragmented . . . unsure of herself.

Unwilling to be honest with herself as to the issues . . . the causes of her discontent.

And dreading . . . her return . . . 'home'.

For one thing, she had been away not one but two days. And while she kept saying to herself that she had cut as many corners as she could as far as her appointments were concerned, she knew that this too was not an honest statement. She knew that she had done it just to make someone angry—

Just maybe to . . . hurt someone—

Like she had been hurt—

Even though she refused to admit it to herself.

_You don't want to leave_

_You know you can't stay_

So much of it went against everything taught her in the phases of Companion Training dealing with interpersonal relationships outside of clients. She had told Kaylee that the Companion policy on 'dating' was complicated. Which meant that the Companion policy and outlook on—

She _shoved_ that thought out of her mind.

Inara . . . honestly didn't know what to do. She knew the reason why she had told no one but Mal that she was leaving was first to see his reaction and second _because she didn't want to leave and she had hoped that just maybe Mal might—_

Her scanners started to flicker. She was getting close to _Serenity's_ orbit. She shook her head in disgust. It was just like Mal to stick to his threat that the boat would be leaving the dirt of Lilac within hours after arrival. Which meant that he had been forced to bring _Serenity_ over to Ugarit from Lilac, going into orbit, using consumables until she returned. That man could be so juvenile that—

_Just as you were being juvenile taking this short range shuttle all the way over to Ugarit from Lilac! Even though both moons were fairly close together in their orbits of New Canaan, you had to do it as a ballistic flight with minimal life support in order to handle the distance. Was that any less juvenile that—_

Inara firmly stepped on the emotions threatening to—

This . . . was the reason why she knew that she had to move on. It was best for her, it would most certainly be best for Mal—

But not just yet.

Inara had sensed . . . with that strong intuition of hers—

'Woman's intuition' was a sought after trait in a Companion. For those who possessed it, it was useful and necessary in realizing just what barriers might stand in the way of a complete joining of a Companion and a client, especially in the encounters with troubled or overly stressed clients that might experience . . . performance issues. It was also suppose to help Companions in recognizing and dealing with clients that might be under so much stress that they could be troublesome . . . or ones that might attach themselves too deeply to the Companion.

While it was not a talent sought in the screening of young Companion apprentices, if it was noticed, it was nurtured in the training houses as a part of the psychological education. Often times, for those who were found to possess it would be used, as part of that training, watching over other students who might be having trouble with some facet of their own training. Historically, some of the students had such a strong 'intuition' that their abilities bordered on precog.

While she had never tested high enough to be a precog, Inara had found that she possessed a particularly strong intuitive sense. For much of her life, it had simply been another tool to complete her work. But occasionally—it had been so strong that she had been unable to resist its pull—

. . . like the day it had 'pushed' her to respond to the ad placed advertising a tramp cargo hauler named _Serenity _which possessed a shuttle for rent.

. . . like how it was pushing Inara . . . telling her that she could not leave right now . . . that something was in the offing where she would be _needed_. She didn't want to say that it had anything to do with the mysterious woman that had been brought aboard—

. . . like . . . how she would have to admit that the hunch which has caused _Serenity's_ Captain to hang around New Omaha was in fact justified—

One of the scary things that Inara had realized in the last couple of months was just how her own 'woman's intuition' was matched against Mal Reynolds formidable combination of intuition and pure luck. It made her wonder . . . if something more was at work when _something_ forced her to respond to that ad for shuttle rental.

Even though this too was probably something that Inara wasn't be honest with herself about—

What else could it be?

* * *

Mal felt the 'bump' from Inara's returning shuttle. That bump turned into a cold guilty lump in his stomach. But at the same time . . . there was a relief . . . somewhere else inside him (he would not say or admit or even _think_ about where it was within him) that was shrouded in its own kind of guilt.

Mal didn't want to feel any of these things . . . but he did . . . and right now he didn't know if it made him angry, sad or simply depressed. He did know that there would be a coldness to the Dining Area that night at dinner as well as more distance between him and the others on board. He didn't like it . . . but like so many things, he would act like he didn't care and wait for the others to move on around him.

There were times that Malcolm Reynolds did not like himself at all, which considering that most of the time he simply didn't like himself very much. He knew that he would never be what he once was. Most of the time he was able to hide the raw, ugly wounds of anger, betrayal and the loss of all hope and dreams—

The guilt—

Guilt that he had survived the war—

Guilt that he had survived Serenity Valley—

Guilt that he had survived his family—

Guilt that his night with Nandi had betrayed—

Mal cut the thoughts off . . . forcing himself cold and hard. He was Captain . . . these people were his responsibility . . . and they had the potential of real trouble in the offing. He squared his shoulders and prepared himself to show nothing but apathy and sarcasm when he encountered Inara—

Then he could feel guilty about that later on.

Right now . . . he went to tell Wash to get the gorram out of here.

* * *

Kaylee pondered the scribbled notes on her clipboard. She was starting to see more bleeding from the AE35 unit which would affect the clarity when they hooked into The Cortex . . . but at the same time it appeared as if there was an intermittent ground in the backup HAL unit. She only had enough cable to rewire one of them so she had to make a choice.

"Kaylee?"

The Engineer looked up in surprise. Inara was standing in the passageway hatch looking as if she thought she was trespassing into sacred territory. Kaylee who had been squatting on her heels jerked all the way upright with a surprised, "Inara."

The Companion looked a little uncomfortable when she said, "you didn't come to see me when I got back."

Kaylee felt her cheeks color . . . but she didn't stammer or try to make any excuses. "I . . . wasn't sure if I should . . . considerin the mood you were in when you left . . . and not knowin what your mood would be when you got back."

Inara looked at the younger woman questioningly. "Do you think that I would take a bad mood out on you?"

Kaylee's face blew open when she realized that she had maybe just damaged her relationship with the Companion, "Inara, no, I'm sorry," she managed to get out as she almost ran over to the Companion. "I didn't mean it that way, I just thought—"

Inara gave the distraught Engineer a smile and laid a hand on Kaylee's outthrust arm. "It's okay; I know that you didn't mean anything bad by that."

"I just thought," Kaylee said softly, "that maybe you wanted some peace and quiet."

Inara kept the smile on her face but there was a hard edge to her tone when she said, "you mean that you thought that I might not want to see a certain bombastic ass who is too full of himself."

Kaylee just pursed her lips together saying nothing. She knew that the tone in Inara's voice was directed toward that 'bombastic ass' and not toward her. At the same time however, Kaylee had tried to support Inara in her stubborn relationship with Mal just as Inara had tried to support her in her attempts to have a relationship with Simon. The fact that it seemed that neither one of them were able to get anywhere—

Although Kaylee knew that there was a difference in the dynamics. She had made no secret of her interest in Simon and she knew that Simon was interested in her; he was just a total klutz in trying to get himself to do something about it without tripping over both of his feet.

Mal and Inara on the other hand . . . neither one of them seemed to want to admit that they had a relationship . . . or at least a potential one . . . and although Kaylee had never said it, she thought the both of them were idiots for denying something that should be obvious to both the Captain and the Companion.

But Kaylee wouldn't voice her feelings due to her fear of damaging her relationship with Inara. So she just shrugged and said, "well, I keep bein told that men are nothin between their ears, too much tween their legs an all their brain's in their behinds so there's no accountin."

The edge left Inara's smile allowing her to ask, "so . . . will you come see what I brought?"

Kaylee's smile gave Inara her answer.

* * *

A/N: Just about done with the rewrite and editing for Book One. Once it is done I'll probably start to publish every other week as I can't see stretching it out over a year which publishing every third week would do.

I hope everyone reading is enjoying. Any reviews or comments are welcome. I will always reply although sometimes it's several days before I can get to them.

Until then

I Will Remain

Your Humble and Devoted Servant

The Wise Duck


	5. Mystery

Chapter Five – Mystery

* * *

_. . . it has now been better than 120 hours since the major convulsions stopped. Although the occasional small tremors can still be seen in the extremities, it is not possible to determine if these are lingering effects from whatever occurred prior or something else entirely—_

Simon looked up from the tablet where he had been keeping the medical log of his experiences on _Serenity._ For a moment he considered the tablet and the log itself. In the back of his mind, he knew that the very act of keeping it was worse than asinine. He knew that he kept it only because habit ingrained from too much school, too much 'proper procedure' too much 'routine' in his prior life and 'conformity' in his upbringing, all of which forced him to be so straight-laced and methodical. Those very parts of his personality were one of the things that Kaylee routinely teased him about.

But it could potentially be worse than that. Simon knew that keeping such a log could very well be a danger to Kaylee and the others. Such a log, if it was ever discovered and recovered would certainly be used as evidence against her and all the others aboard _Serenity_ in any kind of hanging that the Alliance wished to contemplate. But at the same time, the log helped him to think, helped him to sort things out when things were . . . difficult. Because of that, River had up to this point the most entries within it . . . thankfully at last, those entries were becoming fewer and fewer. But now, he had a patient—

_The next point of this very unusual patient which I have yet to mention. I have barely left her side since the onset of her convulsions during my initial treatment of her injuries. That being said, I must also confess that due to the nature and severity of the convulsions, their cause and effect took center stage in my treatment and evaluation of her. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I have been unable to even make an educated guess at the reasons the convulsions occurred, my 'care and treatment' at this point has been little more than serial testing of her body/brain functions and repeat workups of all possible labs to see if a pattern of some kind emerged indicating withdrawal from an unknown narcotic; a possible allergic reaction of a type never seen at least by me or the results of a violent interaction between the drugs I administered and an unknown medication that was already in her system—_

Simon stopped and laid a hand on his forehead. He knew that he was beating around the bush for he had already entered this sequence of thought _twice_. The fact was that despite his need to make an entry, to try and clarify things that he couldn't clarify—

The reality of it was that he didn't really believe what it was that he was reporting and that was why he was having such a hard time making the entry.

_Of course I have no viable explanation for everything regarding this patient and I actually hesitate to record it although I have the infirmary visual records to back up my personal observations. It is unknown if this phenomenon has anything to do with the convulsions or if it is an entirely different circumstance._

_At this time I am also hesitating in conducting a deep scan to see if there is similar advanced activity to the fractures in her pelvis and lower femur. I—_

Simon found that he could say no more. There wasn't supposed to be any 'unknown' in modern medicine (other than that created by illegal and unethical practices like his sister) and what he was encountering was leaving him considerably shaken. He wasn't a researcher or a medical explorer and he didn't want to be one.

But (as he looked from the screen to the still form in the bed), he had to confront what was before him. Part of his was deathly afraid that what had happened to her was the direct result of his attempt to treat her. His conscious had to take responsibility if it was in fact his fault but there was no way of knowing and he had to realize that perhaps he would _never_ know.

Having one anomaly . . . that being his sister . . . was more than enough for him. Having another . . . one for which he was responsible for but without the emotional ties, devotion and dedication which allowed him to ignore what was still wrong with River—

He didn't want or need anything like that.

Unfortunately . . . like his current unwanted status as a fugitive from Alliance authority and companion to a ship full of lost and evil personalities (except Kaylee of course)—

He had no current choice in the matter.

* * *

They were seven days away from Ugarit without problems. Mal had used the time in orbit waiting of the Ambassador's return to secure a 'legit' job hauling empty bulk seafood shipping bins back to the moon Poseidon in the _Bei Hu_ system in The Core Central Worlds. Neither Mal nor Zoe were truly happy about going into a region in the very heart of Alliance presence after suffering so much Fed exposure in a sector normally clear of such activity but such a run would make sure that they got out of _Qing Long_ without any adverse entanglements.

. . . as long as they weren't boarded and questions asked about a certain unconscious female that was currently residing in their Infirmary. But Mal was hoping that with their flight plan and cargo manifest properly posted with all the 'authorities', the chances of their being inspected were reduced to non-existent.

Needless to say however . . . that dinner in the Dining Area . . . had maintained an air thick with tension despite the passage of time. Shepherd Book as he always did tried his best to start conversation. But Inara wouldn't look up from her plate, Kaylee wouldn't look toward Mal, Simon's place at the table was empty and River looked downcast and depressed—

Then Simon came into the Dining Area.

That . . . kind of startled everyone. They hadn't seen him outside of the Infirmary in days. Kaylee had tried to get him away from his patient for some decent food, Book had tried to get him to lie down on the couch in the Lounge, Zoe had tried to get him to get more than just cat naps on the secondary mat on the side shelf of the Infirmary itself . . . even River had chastised her brother over his refusal to leave the woman—

Kaylee and River were instantly at his side, guiding him into a chair. Book was over at the galley scooping him out a plate. In a few moments the Doctor was settled . . . and even managing to eat some food. Silence again dropped on the Dining Area until, Kaylee . . . in the smallest voice asked, "how is she?"

"Alive," Simon breathed. He looked up from his plate and those across from him could see the exhaustion, the frustration, the confusion in his eyes. "I don't know how or why," he continued softly, "there's a dozen reasons why she should be dead, the seizures, blood loss, infection from the skin break in her leg going so long without any treatment, acute dehydration."

"But she's not," Book said for him.

Simon shook his head as if he was incapable of understanding it. "No she's not," was his soft reply. "In fact . . . I think she's going to make it . . . despite whatever it was that I did to her that almost killed her." He took a long slow breath before, "I honestly think that she saved herself . . . that she just refused to die."

"But you were there with her the whole time," Kaylee told him in an earnest tone. "That has to count for something."

"I'm sure it did," Book said adding his own support.

"You could do no less," Inara added.

Simon took another deep breath before he said, "well, I think I've done all I can do. Now—" and he looked down at the plate before him with a wan smile, "I think I'll finish the rest of this fine meal before taking a shower and a quick nap."

"A nap?" Zoe showed everyone's surprise.

"Her internal fluid levels," Simon's voice was reluctant, as if he was giving up a secret, "are doing some strange things. I want to continue to monitor what is going on with her."

River's face screwed up. She didn't yell at her brother but her staccato whine made it sound as if she was. "You've been with her . . . thirteen days . . . little sleep . . . little food . . . gonna get sick!"

"You need to take care of yourself Doctor," came Mal's no nonsense tone. "You got a responsibility to the rest of us as well. Listen to your sister, can't be lettin yourself get so tired that you're dangerous. Let Zoe or Inara know what they need to look for and go to bed."

Simon took another deep breath, his face showing the conflict within him. Finally, "alright," he looked over at both women but did not look at Mal, "let me finish and then I can show you what you need to know."

Mal wasn't looking at any of the others in the Dining Area either when he added, "and make sure she's strapped and locked down. We don't need any more surprises like a dead body comin to life when you try to cut it open."

Kaylee gave Mal her best 'you are beyond being annoying' look when she said, "come on Captain, the woman's legs are all busted up. She probably can't even walk let alone stand."

Book was looking at Simon but he was clearly talking to Mal, "and she's in a coma? Certainly understandable considering the amount of blood she lost." Now he looked at Mal to add, "I cannot see where she could be a threat at this point."

Mal started to open his mouth to lay down the law once and for all—

But Simon beat him to it when he said in a quiet but . . . intense voice, "actually . . . it may be best that she continued to be restrained." Simon's face came up, his eyes meeting Mal's, a look passing between them that matched what he said out loud.

"For as much as I may not want to admit it, there is a very real possibility that the Captain was right . . . and that we've 'bought ourselves a whole heap of trouble'."

Every eye was now on Simon. He slowly turned his head across his friends and companions, his eyes meeting in succession each and every one of their eyes. "This woman . . . whoever she is . . . she is . . . special. Not—" and his eyes last came to rest on his sister who was at his shoulder, "not like you," he told her softly. "Now that I know what I'm looking for, I don't find any of the signs or traces that you have."

River's eyes were riveted on her brothers. They were incredibly deep and incredibly troubled but she held herself to look at him . . . and listened to him. She nodded to reassure them both, allowing her brother to look back to the others in the Dining Area.

"I was actually afraid to tell you," Simon continued to the group in a rather breathless tone, "considering all the . . . debate about what was done and what we might have to do." He then looked square again at Mal, stating, "but considering those same concerns, I didn't feel as if I could hold them back . . . even if I am violating her privacy."

Mal nodded his appreciation to the Doctor. "I'm much obliged that your doin that Doctor. I know it must be hard." Mal then glanced at those around the table before looking back to Simon asking, "so what did you find?"

Simon's 'breathless' tone was back. "Several things. The most amazing is that she seems to heal herself . . . that is that her body . . . its healing mechanisms seem to work at two to three times the speed of 'normal' humans." He looked at Zoe who had helped him with the bandaging in the pod. "That deep laceration on her forehead . . . it's gone. Completely healed. Scab and everything, just new pink flesh where it was."

A look came over his face as if he was forcing himself to say something he knew was true but still couldn't believe, "those same mechanisms also seem to be much more . . . efficient. The smaller lacerations" he waved a hand around indicating the entire body, ". . . not only have they healed . . . but the scars they left . . . are fading. Some of the real small ones are already completely gone." That brought a look of total disbelief to the faces at the table.

He then looked at Kaylee, responding to her earlier statement. "The bones in her legs, the greenstick fractures in her ankles and calves from her being 'whipped' about in the pod . . . their already completely healed. The compound in her femur and the damage to her pelvis, it's like five weeks have gone by instead of just thirteen days. She would be painful . . . stiff . . . and she would still need a brace to keep from reinjuring it but she could stand right now if she had to."

Simon then looked to Book. "I said that things were strange with her internal fluids." He shook his head as if he didn't believe his own readings, "I know that it was probably the saline IV that I gave her that helped restore her plasma and platelets, but her red count . . . she lost almost three units of blood . . . that's just short of a third of what the average body holds . . . and not only did she survive and recover but her current red count is almost four fifths of normal and _I_ didn't dare give her a transfusion after whatever happened with the seizures."

Simon gave everyone a 'significant' look before he continued with, "it takes four to six weeks for your body to replace all the blood that you lose when you give a single unit of blood in a normal donation transfusion. But her body has regenerated a full unit in thirteen days on her own while dealing with the massive original loss _and _without there being any signs of trauma or stress to the parts of her body that produce red blood cells."

The Dining Area was without a sound as those present absorbed what the Doctor was telling them. It took a moment before they came to realize that they were waiting for the 'and' part to be spoken.

So Jayne said it, "and?"

Simon hesitated a long moment before, ". . . she has . . . things inside her . . . inside of her body. Seven . . . eight . . . possibly nine . . . I'm really not sure because my instruments don't see them . . . can't see them . . . but they can see the distortion in the parts of her body caused by their presence or they block my scans like lead does an x-ray leaving a shadow that I can see."

He reached up to touch the parts of his body as he spoke. "First one is inside of both ears with a micro thin wire connecting the two sides that passes just underneath the cerebellum. Another 'wire' then runs down along the side of the jaw on the right side apparently connecting to something embedded in one of her rear teeth. The next two are located inward behind both shoulder joints. All of those . . . things are fairly small . . . a size running from a pin head to the tip of your pinky." He then touched his chest over his heart. "Something here about the size of a single row cigarette case. It's back behind the heart and lungs up against the inside of the ribs right up against the spine." He reached down under the table out of sight, "there's a second one of the same shape and size back behind her pelvis in the muscle on her left side. Then there is something about the size of one of Jayne's big cigar tubes inside of her leg in among the muscle of her right femur right next to the femoral artery."

Simon finally looked up and around, "the remainder are scattered around her torso, arms and such. They're really small and hard to see, that's why I'm not really sure of the exact number."

"Any idea what they are?" Book asked.

Simon shook his head. "Not a clue."

"Sounds like spy stuff to me," Jayne ventured.

Simon nodded in agreement, a nod that almost immediately turned into a shake of his head. "If it was standard Alliance augmentation of an intelligence operative, I would have been able to scan it." He looked up at Jayne, saying in explanation, "I . . . studied that stuff pretty intently when I was making my plans to get River out of her 'school' in hopes that some of it might be able to help me. Whatever these things are, they're either real new or they're not from the Alliance."

"Is she a danger to us Doctor?" was Mal's hard question. "Could she have a tracer or beacon of some kind inside of her?"

"That's the first thing I thought of," was Simon's reply. "I did everything I could think of but then again I'm dealing with something totally unfamiliar. As far as standard Alliance technology, I am fairly certain that she does not have any kind of transmitter on or inside her."

"What about a transmitter that turns on when it gets close to an activation signal from her partners?" Zoe asked.

Simon shrugged. "At the Trauma Center I worked at, we were trained on those in case of a major disaster and we were treating an injured Fire/Restech; they do have emergency locate transmitters embedded inside of them but," he shook his head adding, "I'm seeing nothing like that."

"But you don't know—" Mal stated.

"This whole situation in unknown," Simon lamented. He then looked at Mal, "so maybe we just might have a good reason to drop this woman off as soon as possible. Because we don't know . . . and there is no way I can tell."

Mal was kind of leaning back into his chair, a most neutral look on his face. Jayne in the meantime broke into a huge smile exclaiming, "well, I think that this sure is a case of 'I told you all so' and that you all owe your Captain a heap of an apology." He then looked at Mal and added, "and I volunteer to chuck her out of the airlock." He leaned back into his chair crossing his arms muttering, "this one ain't gonna get the chance to cut me."

Mal came forward with a tired shake of his head, "no one is gonna chuck anyone out of an airlock." He then gave Jayne a glare adding, "least until we get a better idea just what it is we're chuckin."

"What?" Jayne looked aghast, "with all that stuff inside her she's gotta be some kind of spy."

"Sir," Zoe ventured quietly, "you yourself brought up the possibility of industrial sabotage. She may belong to one of the major concerns and that's why Simon doesn't recognize the technology, because it is so new."

"As if the people," Book wondered aloud, "who were holding her captive on the ship that was shot down caught her spying or kidnapped her because of the technology and were trying to get her away—"

"And," Jayne joined back in to reinforce his desire to 'chuck' someone, "that was the reason of the big Alliance blockade, to get her back or—"

"Or kill her," Zoe said with finality. "That would be the reason why the Alliance cruiser didn't come down to look. Like you said, they were ordered not to. Everyone was to stay away until those pros in the Predator showed up to look for her."

"You better let me kill her now Mal," Jayne urged, a little bit of a wild look coming into his eyes. "Do it before her transmitter turns on."

"You're all _insane_," Simon cried. "You can't kill someone based on the fantasies that you're conjuring up out of nothing."

Jayne turned an evil eye on him. "You got a better reason for all that stuff in her let alone the weird way her body works." He snorted as he looked back away from the Doctor, "healin like that . . . could be a witch for all we know. Best be done with her."

Silence descended again on the Dining Area. All of them looked from one to the other waiting for _someone_ else to give the next word.

Mal's eyes were on the table but his tone was almost conversational when he asked, "Wash, Kaylee, Inara . . . you all have been quiet about it. How's your feelins bout this?"

"Well," Wash said with a shrug of his shoulders. "I'd like to say something profound being that it is highly unusual for anyone to ask me my opinion on anything but other than the fact that I would be against 'chucking' anyone out of anything I really don't have an opinion."

Kaylee managed to kind of 'shrug' her entire body. "Don't really know," she said softly. "I mean we don't know. I . . . I can't say nothin on the way her body heals itself but . . . there has to be other reasons for all that . . . stuff inside her. Reasons that aren't . . . bad."

"I," Inara's voice was firm and a little distant as she looked at Jayne with carefully controlled scorn, "won't say one way or the other until the woman is awake and we have a chance to ask her her story." She looked away from Jayne, looking away so she had the back of her head to Mal. "For all we know she is a volunteer for some kind of life saving medical experiment and the devices inside of her are monitors for that experiment. I _acknowledge_," she snapped as Jayne started to open his mouth to contradict her, "the need to be very careful in case she is _not_! But I will not be rushed to judgment." Now her eyes came around to Mal, a well of emotions and feelings that hit him like a club as she said, "I ignored my feelings, senses and instincts once before in regards to a 'mystery woman' who came aboard calling herself the Captain's 'wife'. The complacency on the part of all of us nearly killed us. Now I fear that we are swinging the other way, too paranoid by all the events and things we have recently seen to wait for a logical, rational explanation. I will not allow myself to be forced into that."

The silence came back down into the Dining Area. But now all eyes were on the ship's Captain . . . who was staring intently at the table beyond his plate. In a very soft voice, River said, "my brother's worked too hard on her for her to get 'chucked out'," She gave Jayne a glare. "But then again the moral and intellectual integrity of certain individuals present around this table could very well be subject to speculation and examination by a much higher authority which could be detrimental to those individuals." Jayne felt the glare and shifted uncomfortably under it. He had no idea if River's brain could really 'kill' him but he never wanted to try and find out.

Finally Mal looked up and across at Simon. "Is there any chance based on what you've seen so far of her bein strong enough to break out of her restraints?"

Simon gave it a moment's thought before slowly shaking his head. "I don't think so . . . I have noticed something . . . unusual with her musculature but I haven't had time to look into it. I'll keep the double restraints on her just in case."

Mal gave a small nod before, "then we'll wait to see what she has to say." Mal say Inara glance at him with an approving look . . . only to catch herself and quickly look away. "But when no one is with her I want the Infirmary locked." Now it was Simon's turn to nod.

"Any idea when she might wake up?" Zoe asked.

"Jayne could pretend that he was a knight coming to rescue her," Wash drawled. "He could wake Sleeping Beauty with a kiss . . . although coming from Jayne that would probably kill her."

There were slight smiles (from everyone but Jayne of course who muttered dangerously). But in response to the question, Simon could only give a shrug and headshake. Mal gave a second nod before, "eat more if'in you need it Doctor. Then show the ladies what they need to know and get yourself some shuteye."

* * *

"Inara?"

The Companion looked up in surprise from her pillow on her shuttle floor where she had been quietly reading. What surprised her was the hesitant, tentative sound of Kaylee's voice.

Inara then smiled for she sensed that Kaylee was troubled and had come to her with that trouble. "Yes," the Companion spoke to the curtain that masked the shuttle hatch allowing her tone to convey her welcome.

Kaylee was indeed troubled and this she was wearing on her sleeve as she came into Inara's sight. With a wordless wave of her hand, Inara directed Kaylee to the Engineers favorite pillow. The Companion then put her book away, settled herself comfortably with her hands in her lap and waited.

Inara didn't try to guess why Kaylee was there, such presumption she had been taught in the training houses could lead to unnecessary miscommunication occurring in the first pieces of conversation which were always vital to establishing rapport with a client. Inara extended this civility to Kaylee because of her care and affection for the young women. There were other people on board (two to be exact-one in particular) with whom she did not practice this virtue.

Once Kaylee was settled, she again hesitated, not meeting Inara's gaze, looking down in front of her. Inara waited, patient. Kaylee had come to her like this before. She knew that Inara would give her the time she needed to say what she needed to say in the way she wanted to say it.

"Did we do the right thing?"

Inara's eyes narrowed just the slightest. Normally Kaylee wasn't so . . . unclear on what was bothering her. Inara considered for a moment trying to puzzle out just what it was that the young Engineer—

_The right thing?_

"Oh," Inara said softly as the realization hit her. It took her only a moment of additional consideration to say to Kaylee, "I . . . believe that it is. What is it that makes you doubt?"

Kaylee kind of waved her hands. "Don't know . . . well . . . I guess I've been givin some thought to . . . all that strange stuff inside her that Simon can't figure out." Kaylee lifted her eyes to meet Inara's. "Jayne could be right; she could be a spy or somethin."

Inara nodded acceptance of this but then asked, "and that would change our feelings how? That is only speculation. The facts are that we really know nothing."

"But if she is a spy, she's not gonna tell us the truth when we ask her."

Inara nodded at this as well. "That is true. But consider what her condition might be when she wakes up. Even if her body is healing at an . . . unusual rate, what she has gone through has to have been traumatic. There should be signs present to several of us—"

"Mal and Jayne aren't likely to be carin 'bout—"

Inara gave the Engineer a look that caused Kaylee to go quiet. A moment later Inara said gently, "I was referring to Zoe, Book and myself. Plus we also have our . . . shall we say, secret weapon."

Now it was Kaylee's turn to look as if she didn't understand—

"River," Inara said simply.

'Oh' Kaylee mouthed. She considered this a moment then nodded her understanding.

"Regardless," Inara went on, "Simon was right when he cautioned all of us on any wild speculation. At the same time, as I told Jayne, we must be aware of the potential that could happen and be ready to act if that potential goes against us."

Kaylee looked at her uncertainly. "I guess . . . after Early and all his fancy stuff . . . I guess I'm just really—"

In a flow of graceful movement, Inara came up and forward to kneel in front of Kaylee, reaching out and placing her hands on the girl's shoulders. "And I understand that _mei mei_. Nor do I think that is bad. But what you must do is trust yourself, trust your feelings and impressions, and distrust the prejudices of some of those around you. Take your worry and fear and hold it firm but do not discount or discard it. It is a tool to be used under the right circumstances but not something that makes you a tool of it."

Kaylee shrugged in a self-depreciating way. "I'm not very brave with anything outside of the Engine Room—"

"Which is brave enough for me." Inara told her with a smile.

* * *

"You must admit," Book puffed as he finished his final press, allowing Jayne to help him get the bar back on the stand, "that Wash does provide a service. He lightens up the atmosphere. And you are not the only one who is the subject of his . . . shall we say . . . wry humor."

"Yeah?" Jayne challenged as the Shepherd sat up on the bench, mopping his face with a towel. "then why does it seem that at least half of what he says is towards me and none of it good?"

"The answer is obvious," Book replied, looking at Jayne while giving a wave of one hand. "He knows that you could fold him into origami. He must assert his place somehow and that he does so through humor."

"But why me?" Jayne whined.

"Because you are the most threatening to him," Book stated as if that was also obvious.

"Yeah right, " Jayne snorted, looking at the Shepherd in disbelief even as he mounted weights for his own turn. "I know that if I even looked like I was gonna kick his ass, Zoe would blow my head off. An he know's that too." Jayne shook his head angrily as he came around and settled himself onto the bench. "It's like he's baitin me or sumpthin."

Book took his place at Jayne's head. "I can assure you that is not the case," he told the Merc in a calming tone.

"How do you know?" Jayne puffed as he unlimbered the bar and started it down toward his chest.

"Wise men know these things," was Book's sagely reply.

"Wise men know wise asses huh?" was Jayne's grunted comment.

* * *

"Well Doctor, is your patient progressing satisfactorily?"

Zoe stepped onto the Bridge after her turn in the Infirmary checking on the survivor.

"Ha ha," she told her husband who was just finishing with his navigation check, locking the ship into auto mode and setting all the alarms to alert them if something came into their proximity. Zoe did her usual visual inspection of her surroundings, something that she did on the same level as breathing.

Her face folded into a frown as her eyes settled on something.

"One of these days," Zoe said in a tone of wifely disapproval.

"Whhaaattt?" was Wash's reply as he ran a final scan of the space around _Serenity_. "Jayne would never lay a hand on me." He turned around in the pilot's chair to flash his wife a big smile. "He knows that you would hurt him very badly."

Now a disapproving frown joined the tone. "That's _not_ what I'm talking about and you know it." She reached out as she settled into her usual spot sitting on the side panel behind his chair, plucking the small rubber dinosaur out of the pocket of her husband's loud tourist shirt.

"Hey!" Wash exclaimed grabbing for the toy. His wife was too quick for him as usual.

Zoe waved the thing an inch in front of her own nose saying in a pointed tone, "Kaylee was not happy having to give up those components after the last one melted from that hotspot frying that control board."

"It was my mess and I cleaned it up," her grown-up-husband-who-sounded-like-a-five-year-old muttered back at her. "And it was that boards fault in the first place. _It_ overheated and caused my tyrannosaurus to melt as if caught in a tar pit." He looked away with a longing look in his eyes. "My world has never been the same since then."

That didn't stop the look in his wife's eye. "You promised Mal."

"It's not good keeping a creature that size locked up in a space the size of our cabin." Wash said righteously.

At which time Zoe reached up with her other hand, pulled open the top of her top—

And shoved the toy down inside—

At which time, even as her husband looked at her with shocked goggled eyes, she got up and started out of the hatch. At the threshold, she stopped and looked back over her shoulder, "now . . . if you're interested in seeing if another creature that's locked up can be let loose . . . just maybe you're get your precious little toy back."

Wash growled deep in his throat, launching himself after his suddenly sprinting wife.

* * *

In the dark of the 'night' mode aboard _Serenity_, a lone figure sat on the ladder that went up from the Lounge Area to the aft companion way. The figure was huddled against the one handrail, both hands gripping the upper rail even as the figure looked like it was listening intently—

The spot was a good place for it was between the two points that the figure was at that moment listening too.

To her left, she could sense the sleeping mind of her brother in his cubicle in the Passengers Dorm. He was sleeping very deeply as one would considering his fatigue, his worry, his guilt. All this she could feel despite the distance. Of course it was her brother and she was more familiar with his mind that with any other.

To her right, was another mind. She was physically closer to this one, only a couple of yards away. One of the things that fascinated her about it was that there was so much that she _couldn't_ sense. Things that should be there that weren't.

But even with that . . . even with things not being as they should . . . there were things that she _could_ sense as well. They were very deep, almost at a level within people's minds that she rarely reached.

Which was the main reason why River was so drawn to it . . . drawn to the woman.

River had never experienced such sensations with someone she was totally unfamiliar with. It was almost as if there was nothing between her and the person's most basic levels. River wasn't sure what the cause was but the effect of it was as if what she normally encountered within any persons mind had been swept aside leaving a clear passage going down into those deeper levels.

This is what drew and . . . excited River. For she believed that she could truly detect the deepest levels. Levels where instincts . . . or the rituals and disciplines that after a lifetime became . . . instinctive . . . levels where those kinds of things dwelled.

Instincts . . . and things instinctive that felt . . . familiar to River . . . as if she had them within herself.

There was a difference however.

River knew . . . she knew those feelings and impressions within her . . . she knew that they were not native to her. She knew that they were some of the things that had been _done_ to her, they been put _into_ her, _forced_ into her mind and being.

The person she was listening too . . . this woman . . . she was—

River sensed that those things within the woman, those instincts and things instinctive . . . those things which fascinated and drew River . . . River somehow knew that those things within the woman were the results of a lifetime, things that had come about through years of dedication and training, not forcible injection. They were instincts and the talents that went with them . . . that River knew she would someday need. She would need to match the ones within the woman to those like things that were within herself. This woman could teach River just how to use and handle those things inside of her which were not native to her.

River was hesitant . . . and a little afraid. She believed that what she felt . . . they weren't . . . dangerous things . . . at least they didn't seem dangerous within the woman for they were tightly harnessed, held by rigid discipline. But they were things; as far as what was within her, River knew they were there but she had yet to explore them. Because they frightened her. They were abilities and talents implanted into her that she hadn't fully experienced or even as of yet tapped. River knew . . . or she thought she knew . . . or at least she felt . . . that those things within her _could_ be very dangerous. Her one memory of when she had tapped them . . . how she had been able to take Kaylee's gun and with her eyes closed/head turned away, kill three men with three shots—

That kind of dangerous . . . also something that had truly frightened Kaylee—

Could what she had found within the woman's deepest levels help control what was within Rivers mind?

That was why River was so grateful, so desperate to find such a trove of knowledge that she could tap into. The girl was fascinated; she wanted the woman to wake up.

She wanted the woman to show her the way.

* * *

Mal took his frustrations out that night on a bottle and his ships books. The bookkeeping portion of being Captain was to him the most tedious part of ownership. But being that they were at the moment carrying a legitimate cargo, he made a point of properly updating his files whenever that happened in order for everything to match should the Feds conduct an inspection.

It was also something that demanded all his concentration which kept him . . . from thinking about other things. And what little 'other things' that he thought about became blurred as the bottle was consumed.

Mal normally did not drink to excess. Normally he didn't drink aboard ship (other than a friendly beer during a card game) when they were doing a low profile run or some other job outside of legit. But he figured that they had a legal cargo, were in legal space on a normal profile course with nothing out of the ordinary—

Except of course the two Alliance fugitives in the form of the Tam siblings. But at least they could be hidden in case of boarding. The woman in the Infirmary was in no shape to be moved. And none of them could claim to be the doctor treating her if Simon Tam was hidden.

But like everything else, they would deal with it if they had too.

Somehow, while there was precious little left of the Mal that once was, he did still have his . . . he would _not_ use the word 'faith' . . . but whatever else was similar to persevere when the going got tough. He would never call it 'faith'; he had no use for the word, but the concept it conveyed was a rock that he held onto whither he would admit it or not. It helped him when his crew was pissed at him for he trusted that the phase would pass and order and good will would be restored.

Inara had given him a glance—and then had to remind herself that she was mad at him.

Mal took another long pull of the bottle.

Over the years, he'd drunk away a whole lotta friends that hadn't survived.

What would he do . . . how drunk would he have to get . . . when one who lived walked away—

Even though he knew . . . that phase would too pass . . . he hoped.


	6. Thoughts

A/N: Just a quick apology to a couple of readers to whom I said that a certain event was suppose to happen this chapter. Unfortunately, the size of the chapters was starting to go beyond huge, so that necessitated breaking a couple of them up as well as moving some other things around to balance things out and reset the pacing. However, you may now be assured that at last things will start to move in the next chapter—

And as promised, its title will be—Awake.

* * *

Chapter Six – Thoughts

Despite all the residual fears that the occupants of _Serenity_ might have had, they had managed to get completely clear and free of _Qing Long_ and far out into The Black without any problems. It was interesting to note however, being that they were following an official Alliance 'shipping lane' out of The Rim and into The Core, that the few vessels that were 'inbound' to _Qing Long_ were constantly calling and asking about the horde of Alliance ships there. Word of the 'blockade' had spread as had word (maybe-maybe not exaggerated by this point) of ships being boarded and searched, some even being seized.

Mal was . . . annoyed with having to deal with all this unfamiliar talky traffic. He looked at it as something else that was cluttering up 'his sky'. But he firmly bit his tongue and replied in at least a neutral tone when he had the Bridge watch. He knew that it would be a bad thing to burn more bridges than he already had. His reasoning was that he didn't want to have _Serenity_ get a bad rep among 'regular' spacers . . . let alone other Independents should he ever 'run out of gas' again . . . not that his luck had been real good the one time he had.

Despite the residual tenseness in the air among certain people aboard, the trip went quickly. Daily routine was settled into which took up everyone's time. Mal slowly got over his fit and became more livable. Simon continued to look after his patient, continuing to shake his head as he watched bones bond and merge together, watched scabs fall away leaving scars, scars that slowly began to fade back into skin as if they had never been there.

Speculation about the woman continued to be the main topic at meals.

"No, she's defiantly _not_ a cyborg," Simon said adamantly. "As far as I can tell none of the objects within her actually manipulate or enhance any of her physical abilities."

Wash shook his head, very much disagreeing. "But you keep saying it yourself, you don't _know_." He then got that 'dreamy' look on his face that came to him when he was fantasizing. "Say there was something in there, the thing behind her lungs or the one in her leg next to the . . . what was it called, feminist artery—"

"Femoral artery," Simon corrected with a rolling of his eyes.

"Yeah that," Wash went on. "Say they were something that stored some kind of drugs that injected into her heart and made her super strong—"

Simon shook his head again. "Such drugs don't exist."

"Again how do you know?" Wash went on. "Do you know what goes on inside of some evil hidden lab belonging too—"

"Hey Doc," Jayne interjected, "could you do something like that to me that injected booze into me when I wanted it?"

"You'd never be sober," Inara observed in a tart tone.

"What fun is there in being sober," Jayne retorted in a most serious way.

Underneath it all, there remained a more serious mood.

". . . that's what I'm worried about."

After a moment, Mal nodded his head. He then looked directly at Simon. "I know it's gotta be hard considerin what your sister went through," he told the Doctor. He then kind of shrugged. "Seems that there just might be a whole lot more goin on out there than the Alliance and the big companies let on."

Simon nodded without looking at the Captain as he said, "although I . . . protested when everyone was wildly speculating about what she could be and what might happen after I told all of you what I knew . . . the reality we must face is that, that wild speculation just might have more than just a grain of truth to it."

"If they experimented on your sister the way they did," Zoe agreed, "just what else are they capable of."

"And are we carrying an example of that around with us?" Simon finished. The Doctor took a slow, reluctant breath before adding, "if we are, what happens if it turns against us?"

Mal looked directly at the Doctor, "has anything you've found given you an idea of what might happen?"

Simon considered this for a moment, torn between his deeply committed set of professional ethics and the reality of what he and his sister might someday face.

"I don't know," Simon told the Captain and First Mate for the thousandth time, "but I can speculate about a couple of things."

Mal nodded his acknowledgement before asking, "and those are?"

Simon organized his thoughts for a moment, "I believe that she's . . . highly resistant to trauma and her body going into shock because of trauma."

Mal took this in, considering it against his experience with handling wounded soldiers under his command as well as his own self being wounded. After a moment he again nodded saying, "I think that after everything you've told us that we can take that as a given." He glanced at Zoe before looking back to Simon, "so now we have to consider that if she did turn against us, would she be a real big problem to take down?" He gave another glance at Zoe before asking Simon, "I take it that you think she would?"

Simon nodded, "More so than you probably think." He took a breath before going on. "Once I had a chance to actually run through my records and really take a close look at her condition after we pulled her out of the pod, I can say with certainty that there was no way that she could have survived as she did! The shock alone from all that blood loss untreated for so long when added to the environment that existed inside of that pod _should_ have killed her, would have killed anyone else! Add in what her body went through from that mysterious reaction to the medication; if nothing else happened to her, she _should_ have been dead from the tremendous strain that incident put on her body; a strain that could not be counteracted by anything I could do because I didn't know what was happening and _couldn't_ treat her. But she survived."

Again Mal and Zoe's eyes met, a look passing between them.

"Because of that and other things," Simon went on with a sigh, "it would be my guess that she would be . . . very much a 'handful' to take down."

Zoe looked at the Doctor, "and you base that 'guess' on—?"

Simon shook his head grimly. "Given the kind of stamina I was just talking about, given that kind of resistance to physical trauma and medical disjointment which at the very least should have shut down the effected organs—" he shook his head, still having a problem believing some of his readings.

Simon looked up at his audience. "So first, you have her stamina. Next . . . Book told me that Inara commented on the fact . . . she said the woman was 'fighting to live' . . . and I acknowledged that comment by saying that the woman 'just refused to die'—"

Simon took a moment to gave both former Browncoats a 'significant' look before he went on with, "I'm sure it's no mystery to either of you considering . . . your history . . . how human will—that being a person's willpower under duress, the mental drive to survive fits into the picture." He waved a hand at himself. "In medical school and even more in the specialty training for a Trauma Surgeon, the 'will' of humans in traumatic moments, combat, accidents, disasters (he was ticking off 'reasons' with the fingers of one hand) has been well documented. Moments of incredible strength, the ability to continue to function despite having 'fatal' injuries—"

"We understand all of that Doctor," Mal interrupted. "And I can see how it applies. What we need to know is . . . is this woman somehow different than . . . other 'normal' persons?"

"I suspect that she is," was Simon's answer. "Leaving aside all that unknown hardware inside of her, considering that she survived the unsurvivable several times over, considering that 'stamina' and 'will' within her kept her alive over an incredibly long period of time between the crash and our finding her, considering that she basically 'healed herself' due to my inability to help her—" He paused a moment to keep his thoughts on track before, "in her case such an ability, or if you will the combined abilities, has to be in my opinion the result of intentional conditioning and training rather than just a random event." Simon gave them another 'significant' look. "We're talking about extreme conditioning and training here, military special forces or championship athlete level. The other things, that resistance to shock and the ability to heal . . . I suspect it could even be some form of 'enhancement' to her similar to all the hardware in her or even an intentional 'mutation' to her metabolism."

Even as he was saying all of this, Simon could see that he wasn't reaching his audience. The skeptical 'you haven't said anything to convince me yet' look in both Mal's and Zoe's eyes was burning back at him. He paused to collect his thoughts. How could he say what he felt . . . especially considering the 'incredible' tenacity, will and stamina of _Serenity's_ Captain which had been proven again and again by incidents such as his fight with Niska's henchman after days of physical torture culminating in his 'death' or his ability to repair _Serenity's_ engine after being gut shot by the Captain of the S.S. Walden.

"Captain Reynolds," Simon said formally, "I know that . . . considering your own abilities and tenacity to survive, remember that I have had to 'fiddle with your innards' more than a few times. Therefore, don't be offended when I say to you that you would have been dead within two hours of the crash of that ship. This woman survived. Next. As awesome as your stamina, will and tenacity are, this woman would leave you in the dust." He gave the Captain and First Mate a cool smile. "Remember, that I've seen other ex-Browncoats in the ER as well. I know . . . and am respectful of your kind at least as far as your wills to survive." He shook his head even as he looked directly at Mal. "You aren't even in this woman's league. In my opinion, considering what I'm guessing about her strength and stamina she would fight you to exhaustion, your exhaustion, despite your will to survive."

That seemed to finally break through the ice.

"Ooooookay," Mal seemed more than a bit uncomfortable with the thought. "Her strength?" he asked as if trying to find a reason he could _really_ understand, "You just said somethin about her strength . . . and I remember from before you sayin somethin about her muscles?"

Simon waited another beat before, "I told you before about how I thought her musculature was unusual. I don't have the equipment to measure accurately . . . but I can tell that her actual muscle density is . . . unusual . . . thicker."

"Meanin?"

"She's strong."

Mal cocked his head. "How strong?"

Simon thought for a moment, "I'm guessing, but considering her size, weight and body mass against what I think her muscle density is, I would venture to say that she could probably give Jayne a run for his money." He waited a beat before adding, "even if she doesn't look like an over-muscled ape."

Zoe's lips 'quirked' at the dig at Jayne but her, "shiny," was without enthusiasm.

Simon waited a moment before saying, "Aside from that will and tenacity . . . there's the simple facts of her body. If I had to put it into concrete terms, putting it all together, she has to have the highest survival ability I have ever seen. That's counting and including city police and fire/restech's and some Fed soldier's from a flyer crash, all of which passed through my trauma center at one time or another. But above and beyond them, heading for the absolute top of the spectrum, . . . I've worked on some of the very top professional athletes . . . and I would put this woman in among the top of them."

Simon had to stop and again organize his thoughts before saying, "she's in top shape, or she was when whoever had her . . . 'captured' her or whatever they did to make her a prisoner in that pod. Yes, in the meantime, like anyone who intensely works out then quits, she's lost some muscle mass and tone. But at the same time there's not an ounce of fat on her, her lungs as measured on the respirator indicate toward the very top capacity. If I had to take another guess, I'd be calling her a long distance tri-athlete—"

That perked up Mal's ears, "do you think that could be the explanation? I mean, a reason why she has this . . . stamina and . . . tenac—(a waving of hands)"

"Tenacity," Simon finished for him.

"Yeah," Mal went on feeling just a little stupid. "Is that what she is? Someone creating a—a super track star?"

By the look on Simon's face it hadn't occurred to him. "It's a possibility I suppose," he ventured thinking deeply for a moment. He then looked at the two of them with troubled eyes. "It doesn't explain all the . . . hardware inside of her though."

Zoe kind of made a face, making an attempt with, "something to monitor her performance?"

Simon kind of looked uncomfortable at that. A look from Mal caused him to explain, "as I said, I've worked on some of the top athletes as a part of medical school . . . and it's not public knowledge . . . we were sworn to absolute secrecy . . . but they do have monitors inside of most of them . . . and they don't look anything like what this woman has." He waited a beat before adding, "and . . . yes, as sad as it sounds, the more successful ones have been somehow . . . augmented." He waited another beat before, "but the majority of them aren't in this woman's class. She would be among the top five percent."

Mal had a 'disapproval toward the entire universe' look on his face. "Ain't nothin sacred?" he muttered to that same universe referring to the 'augmented' athletes.

"Frankly," Simon went on, "I think Jayne's 'spy stuff' is a more accurate guess."

Zoe gave her Captain a . . . significant look before looking back to the Doctor asking, "so . . . she would be more than a handful if she went crazy?"

Simon snorted. "if I'm right, it would take the three of you together, you (pointing at Mal), you (pointing at Zoe) and Jayne piling on top with . . . weren't they called lead filled metal pipes . . . swinging to be assured of taking her down on the first try." He then smiled grimly before adding, "and if you didn't get her on the first try, she'd be that handful." He considered a moment before, "I'm not saying that the three of you together couldn't take her down, I don't think she's _that_ strong, but it would be long and ugly. If she was able to injure or knock out one or two of you, the third wouldn't have a chance unless she had already taken more than a fair amount of damage."

Now it was Mal's turn to consider for a moment.

"12 gauge slug . . . or to be sure a couple of 'em . . . center body mass?"

Simon looked at _Serenity's_ Captain, swallowing before answering, "yes, I would think that would do it as well."

* * *

"So . . . what do you think?"

With Mal's words, Zoe came to a stop in the Forward Companionway just short of the bridge ladder. As she did so, Mal who had been in front of her stopped and turned back to her, folding his arms across his chest even as the look on his face told Zoe, 'I really don't like these thoughts I'm having'.

She gave him a grim look of her own. "Well, sir, maybe I should have just let you shoot her in the pod." The First Mate dropped her eyes as she spoke her thoughts. "I know that I said we should just ride along with it as we did with Simon and River—" she looked back up at Mal, an apologetic look in her eyes. "I certainly didn't expect _anything_ like what this is all turning out to be." She took a deep breath before adding, "I'm not sure just what we should do now."

Mal took a very deep breath. After a moment he admitted, "I'm not sure either." He then looked his First Mate in the eyes telling her, "still, you should probably know that back at the pod . . . somethin else . . . something on top of what you and Simon and Book and Kaylee was sayin . . . something was tellin me that I shouldn't shoot her. . . ."

Zoe looked at her Captain for a long moment . . . then nodded. Several things now made sense to her. She hadn't known . . . but she had suspected—

Zoe knew Mal better than any other person in the Verse . . . including her husband. And she knew . . . without a single doubt in her mind that if Mal hadn't had that little feeling telling him _not_ to shoot a helpless woman in a crashed pod . . . he would have shot her . . . despite anything that any of them who had been there at that moment could have said or done.

The fact that he was having 'that little feeling' was also reassuring to her. 'That little feeling' had gotten the two of them through some very dark times. Times like when they had been separated from the main Browncoat forces and behind Alliance lines. Another was when a position they had been attempting to hold was overrun by Alliance Armor and Air. In those times, Sergeant Reynolds 'little feeling', his 'knowing' that they would make it back, and the endless optimism that he conveyed because of that feeling . . . had been the only shred of hope for the people who had been with him . . . including Zoe.

Because of those many instances of Mal's 'little feeling', Zoe had learned to trust it more than some things she could actually see and feel. Mal had been her sergeant, Zoe had been his corporal. The bond this had formed through fire, steel and death was very deep, a depth that only military combats veterans could understand. But one of the things that it allowed was complete trust when one told the other something that might be just slightly unbelievable. It was more than safe to say that Zoe would trust those little feelings of Mal's more than she would words from the King of Londinium.

"So . . . " she hesitated before, "how do you want to handle it?

Mal shook his head in frustration. "Best thing would be to dump her as soon as we could. The problem with that is not knowing how long she's gonna stay unconscious."

Zoe nodded before, "could take her somewhere out on the Rim, one of the religious villages known for their charity. Even if she's . . . still out of it . . . we could kind of—just leave her there where she could be found."

Mal gave her a smile without humor. "Have to find a big enough basket to put her in to leave her on a doorstep like that."

That made Zoe look a little more intently at her Captain—and it only took the First Mate a moment to realize, "you . . . even if you brought up the idea . . . you did it to check my feeling on it . . . 'cause you don't like the idea of just dumping her out on her own."

Mal kind of shrugged. "It's not the dumpin . . . it's still just what is it that's bein dumped." He looked Zoe back in the eyes telling her, "'nother little somethin is tellin me that she's important." He broke eye contact with another shrug. "Problem is we don't know how important and to who."

Zoe nodded her understanding. "Like what we were sayin with Simon. Is she another River."

Mal nodded. "Yeah, or some kind of agent or operative of the Feds."

Zoe gave him a distasteful look. "That gets us back right where we started, havin to dump her before she see's Simon and his sister." That brought another thought to the First Mate. It went behind her eyes, causing just a slight moment of hesitation.

Mal noticed it of course. "What?" he asked.

"Just a thought," she told him pensively . . . then she looked up at him. "And maybe something more. River—" she didn't finish the sentence.

Mal made a motion with one hand for her to go on.

"River," the First Mate told her Captain with more than a bit of reluctance, "I don't know if you've noticed, but other than meals and the time she spends with Kaylee, she's been somewhere around that Infirmary module since we brought that woman aboard." She waited an uncomfortable beat before, "it's almost as if she's 'watching' the woman."

Mal took this in. After a moment he asked, "you think that's a good thing or—"

'Not sure," Zoe replied. "River seems to be . . . curious . . . doesn't seem to be afraid or agitated about it." She shook her head like a horse tossing off a fly. "She doesn't let Simon see her but when he's left the doors open she's right there, almost peeping 'round the corner."

Mal considered this a moment before saying, "she's curious, not afraid, not agitated . . . and that would seem to be a good thing." He made it a statement rather than a question. Zoe nodded to this.

The Captain and First Mate had discussed at length what had happened with River and the Bounty Hunter Jubal Early. The fact that River had seemed to have been able to 'sense' that Early was invading _Serenity_ with malicious intentions had made them wonder if the girl could be used as sort of a 'sensor' for people they might not wish to deal with. Both of them had agreed that a 'single incident' was no test of the girls abilities but still—

It didn't help that her Brother seemed reluctant to get involved with any discussion about his sister being a 'reader'. They had talked about bringing Inara or Book into the conversation but as of yet it was still just between the two of them.

In the meantime however—

"I'd best give this some further thought," Mal said in a musing way. Zoe again nodded her understanding.

* * *

Three quarters of the way to Poseidon—

"What is it," Mal barked as he came onto the Bridge in response to the alarm.

"I'm changing course," Wash told him. "I'm heading for that dust cluster southward."

"Why?" Mal tried again as Zoe and Jayne came onto the Bridge behind him.

"Got a couple of contacts straight ahead,' the Pilot explained punching up the record on one screen."

Mal noticed it immediately. "One ship chasing another." He considered this a moment before. "Okay, I understand but . . . " he looked down at Wash waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Look at this," Wash said in explanation changing the viewing mode of the screen."

One of the ships _glowed_ bright red in that band of radiation.

"No Core containment," Zoe said.

"Reavers," Mal nodded.

"I think all their attention is on the ship they're already chasing," Wash continued. "But not wanting to take any chances, I thought I should make us look scarce."

"Good idea," Mal agreed. He looked to Zoe and Jayne. "Let's be ready in case they change their minds or there's another out here."

"What are they doin here?" Jayne wondered. "This close to the Central Worlds, we're startin to run into regular Fed patrols and all."

"Well none of them lovely patrols are here right now," Mal almost sounded aggrieved about that. "So it's no use speculatin." He took a breath looking uncomfortable. "Let's just hope that we don't need one of those Fed patrols." He then looked to Wash. "Yell if anything changes."

"You got it."

The three left the Bridge.

Mal found Simon, River, Inara and Book together in the Lounge. The three adults all watched Mal intently as he came down the ladder, strapping his gunbelt on as he did so. River was looking up/out with a strange . . . angry/distasteful look . . . it was if she could see out through the hull . . . not liking whatever it was that she was seeing.

Between Mal's gunbelt and the sound of Wash's voice over the P/A, Book knew that there was probably trouble, "do we need to do anything?" he asked.

"We're okay at the moment," Mal told them to calm their apprehensive looks. "Wash picked up what looks to be Reavers (that caused a jump) but it appears that they're already after someone else (looks of relief . . . followed by looks of 'we'll make it because someone else is gonna to be eaten' guilt). However none of them were stupid or crazy enough to suggest helping the doomed ship.

Mal went on. "We're trying to get behind some dust clouds then get around and past them but you never know." He looked at each one separately as he added, "best be prepared in any case." He then looked to the Doctor. "You're patient . . . the woman . . . just in case—"

Simon swallowed heavily. Clearly uncomfortable with the idea but—

"Just in case," he agreed. He stood, taking a moment to gather himself. "River," he then said quietly, taking her by the elbow, getting her to her feet and guiding her toward the Infirmary door as the rest left the Lounge to go to wherever they wanted to go. He failed to notice that despite his directing and physical movement of her, his sisters head remained pointing in the direction she was 'looking'.

Simon got the door unlocked and opened. Leaving River at the entrance, he moved over to one of the counters, pulled out the appropriate items and tools and started to prepare a shot, not just one but three—just in case. After a moments consideration he changed his mind and readied a forth . . . just in case Kaylee—

When he finished, he looked over at his sister, trying to hide the worried look on his face, not knowing if he was successful due to the fact that he was unsure just how much she could 'read' him.

Simon . . . had had to admit to himself some time before that since the episode with Jubal Early and the Captain's declaration that his sister was a 'reader'—

Simon knew that he often tried his best to ignore it, to deny it, and everything it meant. He was otherwise perfectly 'fine' with what had been 'done to' his sister. The fact that her brain had been cut into and physically scrambled around only aroused murderous, white-hot brotherly fury in him. But that was a physical 'something'! It wasn't something nebulous . . . which the concept of psychic abilities had always been to his logical, pragmatic, medically-trained mind. For his sister to have something that he couldn't see, couldn't 'touch', couldn't run through a diagnosis program . . . something . . . intangible like the fact that she just might be able to read minds. . . .

In retrospect, it made perfect sense considering what River knew when she shouldn't know it, what she could do when she had too . . . but Simon still . . . had a hard time with it. Like now, the thoughts he was having as he made the preparations. He didn't know . . . and had a hard time accepting whether or not he had to worry over that fact that he _didn't know_ . . . if his sister had been able to 'read him' and therefore knew that he had just finished preparing something that was meant to kill her should Reavers—

Then his eyes widened slightly as the sight of his sister before him broke into his thoughts. River was still looking upward and back over her shoulder . . . 'looking out' in that same direction she had been looking while they had been waiting in the Lounge. It looked as if she was listening to something only she could hear—

Simon saw this, his startled reaction due to the fact that his 'looking up' was just in time to see the distress flow into his sisters face—hear what sounded like a whimper from her lips—

"River?"

"They know they're about to die Simon."

It took him a moment for what she had said to register.

It shocked him. "You can hear . . . across that kind of distance?"

"They're Screaming—I can hear them because they're Screaming!" River half yelled, her hands going up over her ears. "They just realized what was happening; they just realized what's after them!" She looked at her brother, "their Screaming Simon! I can hear them Scream!" and her face scrunched up, the tears erupting, her hands coming around to the front of her face—

"Oh," Simon managed as he darted over to another drawer, snatching the pre-loaded injector there with the medication he had made for his sister. In moments he had River in his arms, he was gently lowering the two of them to the floor of the Infirmary as she sobbed into the hollow of his shoulder.

It was awkward, but he managed to get her injected. He then held her tight, murmuring comforts into her ear.

He wasn't sure how long they stayed that way.

At some point she finally stopped crying. She didn't stop clinging to him though.

It wasn't until Simon realized that parts of his legs and feet had gone to sleep that he made an attempt to—

"Did they stop?"

After a moment River nodded her head. "Yes," she said in a very little girl voice. "They finally faded off into the distance."

Simon wasn't sure if he should ask . . . but he also needed to know if River had—

"Did—did they—"

River shook her head. "They were still running away. They hadn't gotten caught. But the Reavers were close—very close."

That caused a thought that made Simon's heart stop. "You—you couldn't—"

Simon didn't know if River 'read' him or she guessed his question.

"No, I . . . couldn't hear—," She took a long shuttering breath. "I—I think I could sense . . . their lust . . . to kill . . . like an animal."

"Just like animals." That came out of her in a deadly growl. Simon was shocked at the implicit hatred in her voice.

"Is everything okay?"

Simon's head came up with a jerk. Zoe was standing in the Infirmary door. The look on her face was a mixture of curiosity and worry."

"Ah," Simon managed awkwardly. He pushed himself back from River, wincing at the pain from his 'dead' legs and feet.

"Can I help?" Zoe asked, offering a hand.

With the First Mates help, both of the Tam siblings wobbled to their feet. As they did so, Zoe continued with, "we seem to be in the clear. Wash is getting back onto the designated route. A pair of Alliance destroyers passed by about five minutes ago at full thrust back toward—" she let the statement die.

Simon looked at Zoe with the question in his eyes. Zoe could only shrug. "No way to know if they'll be in time. We can only hope that they catch those bastards still there and blow 'em out of the sky."

"Yes, I would suppose that would be a good thing," Simon managed.

"You're sure you guys are okay."

River was still silent in Zoe's presence but she looked at both the First Mate and her brother, managing to nod her head before dropping her eyes back down to the deck.

"We're fine," Simon said for the both of them.

"Well, okay," Zoe said, still looking a little uncertain. She started out of the Infirmary, saying as she went, "Book said that dinner will be about half an hour or so late."

"Thank you," Simon called after her. He tested his limbs as life came back into them, looking to River, "are you—?"

"I'm fine," his sister told him, her voice coming back more toward normal.

Simon considered this a moment, deciding to let it be before he told her, "all right, give me a moment." He then tentatively moved away from her. When she didn't react adversely, he turned to the counter where he started to 'unload' the four deadly injectors.

River stood with her arms wrapped around her middle as things continued to resonate around inside her mind and self even as the 'cloud' within her mind caused by her brothers medicine started to filter in and around her awareness. It was then that she noticed, as if for the first time, that she was in the Infirmary with the woman survivor. She was close enough to actually _see_ the woman, she wasn't looking in through the windows.

River stole a glance at her brother. He was occupied with the injectors. Her hand came up to where she could chew on the nail. With her eyes rapidly shifting back and forth between her brother and the figure on the table, she slowly started to make her way over toward the exam table.

River did not know what she intended to do when she got there. All she knew was the attraction, the curiosity over why she couldn't hear as much as she normally would, why could she reach down into levels she had never experienced, why—

River tried to take in the details she couldn't see from the distance of the Lounge ladder with the intervening walls/windows. As she had been down by the foot of the bed, the angle was such that she couldn't see the woman's face, not with all the tubes and such cluttered around it. River took another step, in another moment she would be able to look directly down into the woman's face—

Suddenly Simon was done. He was turning around. River instantly took a guilty step back.

"Alright," Simon told her with a more than slightly forced smile, "let's get ready to go to dinner."

River could only nod. When her brother motioned toward the open Infirmary door, she reluctantly turned toward it. She felt her brothers arm go around her waist to guide her out and she followed the pressure of his insistence that she do so—

Against that pressure, just as the two of them were halfway to the doors she stopped, her head coming around to look at the woman on the table. River's eyes were intense. Had she just maybe—?

"River . . . is everything alright?"

River ignored her brother, cocking her head as if it would help her listen.

Something she'd heard—

"River?"

She slipped out of her brothers grip, taking a step back toward the still figure on the table. Her head was cocking back and forth as if she was trying to hear—

"I—I thought I—" she started to say.

Simon was back behind her now. He gently took her shoulders and tried to turn her about. "She's in a coma River. It's probably going to be some time before she wakes up."

River . . . resisted for a moment, "I heard—"

"River," was Simon's patent but firm voice, "you couldn't have 'heard' anything".

River allowed her brother to lead her out of the Infirmary.

Even then, her head was turned all the way around, watching the receding figure—trying to tell—

As she stood out in the Lounge while her brother locked the Infirmary door, River knew that she . . . was going to continue . . . to listen very hard.

* * *

"Bout ready to button her up for the night?" Mal asked Wash as the Pilot made some last minute entries into the computer. They were coming to the end of their journey and outside traffic, both commercial and Alliance was steadily growing.

"Yeah," Wash replied. "Been so long since I kept this kind of a proper log that I think I've forgotten some of the niceties those Fed inspectors want to see." He shook his head as if annoyed. "You do know, that if after all of this, if we don't get inspected I'm gonna be really ticked."

"I think I could deal with you ticked," Mal told him with almost no humor, "rather than havin any Purple Belly's goin through my ship."

"Such an attitude," Wash lamented with a shake of his head.

"It was somethin I was born with," Mal agreed. He turned to start back out, "E.T.A. still the same?"

Wash nodded as he made the final entry with a flourish before standing up and turning to follow Mal out even as Jayne came onto the Bridge to take over the 'required' watch. "Yeah," the Pilot told the Captain, "we should be in Poseidon right before lunch in four days."


	7. Awake

Chapter Seven – Awake

The _Firefly_ class medium hauler _Serenity_ was approaching The Core. They were less than three days out from Poseidon. It was very early in the morning boat time—

_PAIN!_

_FEAR!_

_CHOKING!_

_DISORIENTATION!_

_LOSS!_

_CHOKING!_

_GRIEF!_

_CONFUSION!_

_CHOKING!_

_**CHOKING!**_

River woke up—

* * *

It was a pure spinal reaction for Simon to come awake as he felt his sister touch his shoulder and call his name, fear and warning in her voice. He forced his eyes open, wondering if he had missed giving River a dose of her medication due as the results of what had happened with the Reavers, of having to give her that dose so early—

"River, what is it?" he managed as he pushed himself partly up.

Then he saw his sisters face—

"River—?"

"She's awake Simon . . . and she's choking—"

Simon looked at her like a deer in the spotlight for a moment, totally at a loss about what his sister could possibly mean—

_She's awake—_

_She's choking—_

Simon bounded out of bed. Frantically pulling his robe about him he almost stumbled out of his cubicle in his haste—

"Shepherd Book—help!" he called, rapping hard on the Shepherds door as he went past. He couldn't break into a run considering how close the Infirmary was but he tried—his glimpse through the window as he worked to open the doors enough to know that his worst fears had been realized.

The sound of incessant gagging came to his ears as the doors opened, the noise increasing the amount that he was _damning_ himself—

Fearful of a sudden re-onset of the mystery seizures along with the fact that the woman was in a coma, he had left the endotracheal tube in place, secure in the knowledge that her current condition would probably last for at least weeks if not a couple of months. Once again the strange recuperative powers of this woman had caught him off guard—

And she was choking to death because of it.

Simon was at her head, grabbing her jaw with one hand to hyper-extend it while his other hand stripped away the ventilator attachments and grasped the protruding portion of the tube going down the woman's throat. Movement beyond her caused just Simon's eyes to flick up. Book, dressed in a long men's nightshirt was coming in. Simon nodded down, "hold her head and try to keep her from moving it as much as you can." Without hesitation the Shepherd reached in and took a firm hold with his strong hands.

Simon tried to ease the tube out but the woman's throat was now so swollen that it was going to be difficult. There was no choice in the matter however and all he could do was complete the task hoping the he didn't irreparably damage her vocal cords.

In moments it was over. The woman's chest heaved as she fought to catch her breath. As her . . . panic slowed, her eyes came open and the look that Simon expected, one of pure disorientation came into those eyes.

After a moment . . . there was something else there as well.

River . . . who had been standing at the end of the bed was staring at the woman. River then said very quietly and very simply, "now I understand . . . that's why there's nothing there . . . she's misplaced it."

* * *

Mal was fighting to keep his eyes open. It was about 5AM boat time and he was having more than a hard time waking up. The evening before after the Pilot had 'buttoned her up', the two of them had had a . . . robust card game going with Book which had lasted way past midnight. He had managed to break even against the wily Shepherd (who always insisted that any of his 'earnings from this ill advised vice' went to charity) which had left him pleased with himself for the first time in better than a week. But the sudden awakening to Simon's summons had given him a headache. He'd taken some stuff that he'd kept in his cabin for events of this kind but it really hadn't kicked in yet. So he was a little slow when the situation was explained to him—

"So," he asked, waving one hand in front of River as if it could help draw more coherent information out of her, "what you're sayin is that she's—"

"She's blank Captain," River's face was the epitome of seriousness when she was saying this. "I didn't understand before why she was so . . . bare, why I could go . . . so deep. She's misplaced herself inside of herself leaving her . . . empty, a book with blank pages, a—"

Mal looked at Simon and Book; the four of them were standing in the Lounge right next to but out of the line of sight of the Infirmary doors. As he again forced his eyes wide open, Mal waved a hand at River to stop an explanation that he couldn't understand.

"I think what my sister is saying Captain, is that the woman's mind, other than the base emotions such as pain and fear . . . is blank."

Mal took this in while at the same time smiling to himself as the Doctor was looking more than a little perturbed at the whole thing. Despite not being quite awake, Mal could clearly tell that the Simon was more than unhappy that Mal was asking River what was going on with the woman rather than him. At the moment _Serenity's_ Captain didn't care about the Doctors feelings . . . as if he ever did. The fact was that River was volunteering information and despite many things, after the events of the last couple of months, Mal mostly trusted River in situations like this.

However, there were times when he couldn't quite understand what the girl was saying . . . and at the moment he was having a hard time understanding what the brother was saying. So, he nodded sagely at the words of both of the Tam siblings before looking to the elder Tam asking "and all that means—?"

"The woman's lost her memory," was the tired reply from the Doctor. Mal took a moment as this registered . . . then gave the Doctor a very pointed look demanding an explanation.

"It may be a side effect of the seizure," Simon sounded like he was speculating when he said this. "It's certainly global if there's nothing there. Of course," and he had to shrug when he said this, "it's always possible that she lost her memory before we found her." He looked at Mal, "there's really no way to tell."

"Is there any way to bring it back?" Mal asked, grasping for something.

Simon closed his eyes and shook his head. "Considering what has been happening, this woman shouldn't even be conscious. Without knowing anything about her or what happened to her prior to our finding her or what caused her seizures, there is no way that I can make an estimate." He sighed and looked toward the Infirmary doors, "we can only hope, like everything else that seems to happen to her, that she regains it in time."

Mal rubbed his aching head. "So what do we do now?"

"I suggest," Simon said with a tone that indicated that he was trying to take control of the situation back onto himself, "that we go in and introduce ourselves."

* * *

Mal was kind of taken aback with his first look. He hadn't really been able to picture what the woman's face would look like being that he had either seen it while she had been in the pod or when they were carrying her in the stretcher; covered with blood, puffed up, swollen, black and blue with hunks of hair caught up in the blood . . . or when he had responded to Simon's request to talk after the seizures had lessened. At that point she had had a breathing tube down her throat, half of her face bandaged—

The woman had a narrow face but without all the hard angles that of most women with like features possessed. Unfocused brown eyes were looking upward without really seeing. There was a 'bag' next to her head. Mal had a momentary problem figuring out the reason for its presence. Moving to the side of the bed, he finally saw that Simon had stuffed all that long hair into the bag in order to keep it from draping down onto the floor under the table.

One other thing that Mal immediately noticed. He personally had been skeptical, but as this was the first time he had been in the Infirmary with the woman since his . . . not-to-friendly conversation with Simon . . . the gaping wound on her forehead . . . there was just the barest dark spot where it had been. It looked like just a minor skin discoloration. None of the other cuts were visible—not even the scars that should have been there. He guessed that he really did have to believe what Simon had said about the woman's healing.

Mal looked back to her face, her eyes. It . . . it gave him an impression of . . . he wasn't sure what kind of impression . . . for whatever it was . . . was just tickling at his mind. What he could tell of his . . . impression . . . was that it was trying to tell him—

Mal considered this for a moment. He wasn't sure if he was prejudiced by the knowledge of the woman's strange abilities or all the hardware apparently inside her . . . but he had always prided himself on his capacity to accurately assess people during that 'first impression' moment. It was one of his more important abilities and one that he used constantly with everything from potential employers to Alliance Captain's who didn't know their heads from their backsides when it came to being out in The Black. And in this case, his instincts were telling him that the woman did have some kind of dangerous aura around her even if—

Her eyes must have detected the moment of Simon and himself as they moved together up to the sides of the Infirmary bed. The eyes moved between the two men. Mal expected to see—

Mal did not see what he expected . . . there was no fear of the unknown in those brown eyes.

Mal couldn't count the number of times he had been present when the gravely wounded had woken from unconsciousness, suddenly knowing/realizing they had lost a limb or something equally terrible and the fear, the panic that was natural in such an event had come to them, even the hardened, grizzled veterans who did their best to hide it. But Mal's experience was that somehow, such knowing/realizing was an automatic reaction that could not be avoided. With his experience with those who had been gravely wounded, he could not think of a time when he had not seen that sudden, frightened, knowing, denying look in the wounded person's eyes. As a sergeant, it had been his responsibility to be there with the wounded when the battle allowed it. It was something he had never gotten use too but it had been his job.

Now—at this moment—

All Mal saw in the eyes now before him, even as the woman was blinking then to clear her vision as she fought to bring his and Simon's faces into focus . . . was a measured response . . . wary of the unknown but . . . if there was any fear . . . it was buried deep and held under very tight control. Mal knew that it had been better than a half an hour or so since the time the woman had actually 'woken up' but still—

Mal couldn't . . . quite . . . accept this. He would think that the 'total loss of memory' would be as traumatic as the loss of a limb. He didn't 'doubt' what River was telling him . . . but he couldn't help but think that there should be a similar reaction if memory rather than a limb was lost. Disorientation and fear of the unknown and her strange surroundings should at least be visible in the woman's eyes especially if the 'reality' of her having lost her memory had stuck to her during that same half an hour.

"Where—" that word came out of the woman's throat as an almost incomprehensible barely audible whispered croak.

Simon finished flicking some buttons on the monitors before he came in close to the woman's face. "I am Doctor Tam. You were injured rather badly but you are recovering well." He lifted a light source, flicking it into her eyes for pupil reaction. "Can you tell me your name?"

The woman's eyes went to the Doctor. She seemed to get them clear enough to give Simon what Mal could describe as an 'intense' look.

Simon looked back to her and after a moment repeated, "your name?" There was a long moment before . . . she started to shake her head—

"Ah, ah," Simon stopped her with gentle hands on her cheeks. "Don't move too much until we've had a chance to go through things slowly. You're not in any danger but you did damage some things rather badly." He looked her closely in the eyes and said, "you don't remember your name?"

With obvious effort, the woman managed to whisper, "no."

"Your mother's name?"

"No."

"The name of your favorite pet when you were growing up?"

"No!"

Mal's eyebrow quirked. There was a different tone, an almost 'angry' tone to that 'no'. And the woman's eyes . . . they were starting to sweep around, taking what she could see of the Infirmary. But it wasn't the look of wild panic looking for a way out . . . it was most definitely a probing gaze.

Simon tried again, "Do you remember what year this is?"

"Where am I?" _that_ almost came out as a demand rather than a question.

"You're on my boat," Mal said sharply bringing those eyes to him. "I'm Captain Reynolds,"

Mal saw those eyes focus on him . . . felt his own reaction as the woman gave him what could only be called as an 'intense' look which seemed to measure him inside and out. Those eyes held him for a long moment—

"Captain—" the whispered voice croaked. But . . . the way the word came out . . . it sounded to Mal as if she was making the word a title of respect.

Mal felt his gut tighten . . . for he realized that he was reacting to her as if she was a wounded soldier . . . even as it came to him that those eyes, were measuring him as a career soldier might.

Could this woman be some kind of military . . . something . . . ?

But Mal also realized—

The woman had actually bobbed her head just the slightest when she called Mal 'Captain' and he could see the deference to his 'rank' in her eyes.

And Mal most definitely did _not_ see any of the 'smug superiority' that lived in every pore of a Fed—

_Is she a former Browncoat like Zoe and me?_ he wondered.

"You are misplaced?" came River's quiet voice from behind Mal.

The woman's eyes left Mal, going to the girl who was standing just beyond the foot of the bed with the Shepherd beside her. The woman took River in with the same gaze she had given Simon and Mal, the girl seemed to absorb it without reaction. Another moment went by.

Then the woman replied to River's question. But the voice, despite its breathless, barely there sound, somehow managed to convey both understanding and need when the woman said, "yes, I think I'm lost . . . " It was only at that moment that worry and uncertainty became visible in the woman's eyes.

River's eyes were very, very serious. "Only part of you is lost . . . most of you is misplaced." The next moment . . . River actually seemed to 'struggle' with her words/thoughts as if the girl was trying to understand whatever it was that she 'sensed' . . . as if the girl was trying to put the 'concepts' she was dealing with into words she could speak.

When River did say what she had managed to interpret, it came out clear and firm as if the girl was very, very sure of what she was telling the woman—even if it didn't make sense to River or anybody else—

"A Warrior of Altar will come again in time; the wife of Duke will find forgiveness."

Simon and Mal's eyes met.

"I think," Simon said just as softly to the woman although his eyes remained on Mal, "that we are going to try our very best to help you find both the lost and the misplaced." He then looked back down in order to start his exam. "Now if _anything_ feels wrong or hurts . . . you need to tell me."

The woman seemed to try to relax—

Then . . . a funny faraway look came into her eyes . . . and after a moment she whispered, her voice almost fading completely as she finished saying, "I'll try Doctor . . . but you should know . . . that something tells me that I'm really an awful patient."

Simon gave Mal another glance, throwing a second glance back at Book—there was a very slight smirk on his face even as he said, "actually, most of the people that I treat nowadays are pretty awful patients. So you don't have to worry about it."

Mal quietly stepped out of the Infirmary, a touch on the arm breaking how River was still staring at the woman, a jerk of his head telling her and Book to come with him.

"Well?" was all he asked to the slight girl who was so much more than any of the others on board. Despite the fact that River was still staring back in toward the direction of the woman even though there was a solid wall separating them, she heard Mal's question and nodded back in the woman's direction.

"She's . . . good," was all that River said.

Mal gave her an questioning look. "Good as in she's hidin herself well or—"

"She's good as in she's not bad," River explained still staring back into the Infirmary as if she could and was listening to the conversation her brother was having with the woman. She finally turned her head to Mal adding, "No evil—she's angry," River looked back into the Infirmary, "very angry," her tone was hushed as if she was afraid of the woman hearing her talk. "But she's . . . angry at herself. The lost part . . . the missing part . . . the hurt part . . . something deep within herself is hurting her terribly." She then looked back up at the Captain. "She blames herself for all of it . . . even if she can't recognize it at the moment."

Mal took a long slow deep breath, also looking back inside before, "well great. So now I've got an angry lost woman on my hands that's full'a stuff that your brother can't figure, has an unnatural body and is a blank page." He looked from River to Book and back sounding most unhappy, "how am I suppose to work with that?"

River looked back up at Mal and gave him one of those child urchin-like smiles, "you know that a part of her is like you, why not just go with that?"

Mal felt the creeps take him at River's guesstamate. He didn't think he would ever get use to it. But—

"Yeah," he admitted looking once again back at where River's brother was working on this mysterious woman, "guess I'll just have to do that."

_But first_ he thought—

* * *

Imagine waking to . . . nothing. Not a 'nothing' like those who have supposedly had 'out of body experiences' or have woken in a deprivation chamber with absolutely no light or sound. No, this is a 'nothing' where you have all your senses, all of your sensations, all of your cognitive abilities . . . except memory. Imagine waking to a sense of Self that resembles both an infinite void and a confined restriction . . . both of which could be described as 'white' . . . except for tiny shadows that sprang into being at the hearing of a word or the eyes finding an object—

Those shadows . . . seemed damnably familiar . . . allowing the intellect to come to the conclusion that those shadows were shreds of memory. But they were fast, elusive and translucent—

'She' didn't know what to think . . . if only because thinking itself was so hard. It was if her brain hurt . . . only for her intellect to finally tell her after several hours that she 'knew' even if she couldn't remember it that the brain was incapable of feeling pain.

There were periods . . . the short one before the Doctor, the Captain and the . . . unusual girl who seemed to be looking inside of her brain . . . and longer periods after that (between visits by the Doctor) that all she had to do was lie . . . and think.

Not that she was thinking . . . she was 'realizing' . . . meaning that she was realizing what things were, bringing words and concepts back into her brain.

Things such as the 'door' into the place where she was, the one that was always . . . she thought the word was 'closed' . . . whenever she was alone. She took quite a bit of time to think through . . . door—portal—hatch—entrance—

Through this method, she was building up her mental vocabulary . . . finding as she did so, that the pain in her head lessened.

It also took her mind off of the questions that she couldn't answer . . . like the questions the Doctor had asked.

Like—who—what—where—when—why—how . . . as applied to 'she'.

There were things however . . . that she 'knew'.

Like she had known that she was a 'bad patient', that she didn't like being in the hands of medical personnel—

Because she 'knew' that she had spent a bit of her life in the hands of medical personnel.

Just as she 'knew' that she didn't like spending time flat on her back doing nothing even as she 'knew' that she often had to force herself to do so because she had 'learned long ago' the price paid if one pushed herself too fast/hard after an injury.

In this way, things—concepts—realizations—slowly came back to her. In a moment that she had to consider 'brilliant', she realized that it was like she was standing at the edge of a vast lake. She came to . . . 'accept' the theory that everything she 'knew', was . . . the case being that 'all that' was in fact a 'mental picture' . . . it was as if it was put together in the form of an ornate city and/or various everyday objects. 'All of that that she knew' was before her in a 'landscape' which was spread out across the 'bottom' of that lake, covered by the water which kept her from recognizing/remembering what it was that she 'knew'.

Somehow/someway, the level of the lake was falling. Due to that, 'things' . . . bits and pieces of knowledge were slowly becoming 'visible' as the water level went down. But very little of what she 'saw' made any sense to her. How was she to know that something was the memory of a 'church' when only the top foot of the steeple was visible above the water barrier? How would she know that something was a four-poster bed when only the very tops of the four posts were showing?

It made her realize that much of what was coming back to her might be part of something much larger—meaning that she wasn't sure if she could truly trust one particular memory to be 'whole' or the concept she was at that moment trying to understand as 'complete'. Therefore, she 'decided' to concentrate on physical things—like door/wall/light—until she felt more sure and confident of her own mind.

It was all very strange and weird to her (although she had no idea how she 'knew' that other than a gut feeling) but at the moment it was something she could recognize and understand, which made it a big help in orienting her mind and self. Another of 'those little something's' told her that she was very much pragmatic by nature (for some reason that 'concept' came clearly to her) so even if something was 'strange and weird', if it got the job done she was going to go with it.

By the time her next new visitors arrived, she had (tentatively) identified everything in the room that she could see. By the Doctor's conversations she could tell that there were ambiguities (the Doctor calling something 'something' while she remembered it as something else) but the fact that she was starting to feel 'oriented' calmed some of the anxiety within her.

Her visitors—

_Two women . . . one in the lead is . . . Afric . . . solid . . . doesn't look as if she takes any nonsense . . . the other . . . smaller, softer . . . elaborately dressed . . . native or religious garb (_how to I know that_) of some kind?_

The Afric woman was in the lead. There was a one eyebrow raised slightly when the two sets of eyes met. When those eyes met—_this one's more than solid . . . she's tough . . . squared away (_how do I know that term?_). _

The Afric woman came to a stop next to the side of the bed, breaking eye contact to scan the bed's sensors and take a look down the sheet covered body.

"Had a rough time of it," she said in a tone which sounded carefully 'neutral'. "Any idea what happened?" she then asked, eyes coming back to . . . challenge—

"From what your Doctor said, yes, I apparently had a rough time of it," the woman replied. Her voice was still the breathy, barely there whisper of someone with almost total laryngitis, but Simon had found no evidence of permanent damage. The woman's two visitors did have to listen very carefully to hear, "given what he told me I would have to say that I would agree with him. But I'm afraid that I have no idea as to what or why."

The 'challenging' look now was added to the tone of the Afric woman's voice, "you don't expect us to believe considering what we know," the Afric woman paused a moment before, "that you've forgotten everything? It's all too convenient . . . almost out of a novel . . . for you to have completely lost your memory . . . and things don't happen like that in real life." The look then got just a bit harder when the Afric woman added, "do they (saying it as a statement rather than a question)."

_She's calling me a liar without actually saying the word. She doesn't believe . . . or . . . she's testing me . . . that's what it is, I recognize that—concept . . . so . . . do I care . . . does it matter what I tell this woman or any of them? I don't have a bloody clue as to who or what THEY are . . . they could be the ones who injured me for all I know and they need me to get my memory back for something—which is certainly interesting that I know and understand _that_ concept—_

_But—_

"I was of the opinion," the woman's strained whisper going even more strained with the tightness of her emotions this line of questioning was causing, "that in life, anything is possible. That factors running from diversity and probability to whims like luck and chance is what makes the galaxy what it is. None of us are given to know what may happen or in what way."

The Afric woman's raised eyebrow went higher. It seemed to take a moment for her to form her next thought.

"That's a mighty well thought out response for someone who doesn't remember anything."

_I _am_ being tested,_ the woman thought_. The question now becomes, why am I being tested . . . and do I want to pass or fail this test?_

"Then here is another well thought out response," the woman continued in the same tone. "I could say that I'm not going to say anything until I know where I am, who you are and where and how did you find me." The woman's eyes then shifted to the second woman, the one in the soft flowing clothing who was standing to the side beyond the end of the bed intently watching. "However," the woman continued, "being that I am tied down to this bed, it's not as if I can get up and saunter off. But at the same time, I owe at least your Doctor a debt for watching over me." The woman then looked back to the Afric woman, "so you see my quandary. You don't know who I am, I do not know who you are. Unfortunately we need to add to that, that _I_ do not know who I am so the level of difficultly increases. Now, I am obviously not in a large hospital or other public facility. In fact I've been told that I'm on a space ship and I've surmised by the lack of traffic out of the windows that it is either a small one or one with a small crew. The . . . actions and conversation of your Doctor, your Captain and the other young lady that first visited me did not . . . strike my senses as if I was a captive. So I assume that for some reason you are . . . wary of me . . . hence the reason I am restrained . . . which was why you opened this conversation the way you did madam—?" the woman finished the statement with a questioning tone.

The Afric woman's other eyebrow had risen during this. The woman somehow knew that she had caught the Afric woman off guard but the woman was a. . . . pro (how did she know _that_) and would not allow such emotion to show. After a moment, the Afric woman gave her a consenting nod, saying as she did, "I'm Zoe. I'm First Mate on board."

The woman then looked to the one in the flowing clothing. This one seemed momentarily surprised by the sudden attention but it passed almost instantly allowing her to say, "I'm Inara. I . . . rent space on board but basically I'm a passenger."

_So, First Mate, always the Captain's hatchet woman, and a passenger . . . who strikes me as. . . she's not just a 'passenger', she's watching me too intently and her expressions and reactions are . . . she's got some kind of training in listening (_how do I KNOW that?_). She's a part of the test, she . . . this Inara. . . . is evaluating me just like Zoe is._

"To answer your earlier question ma'am," the woman gave Zoe the same nod of deference that she had given the Captain, "I'm obviously getting back my general awareness of my surroundings . . . despite the unfamiliarity of this actual facility, and my head has unscrambled enough to allow me to communicate as we can all plainly see. But my personal memory is no better. And I hope that I have been frank enough with you in order for you to form the opinion that I am not bluffing or role-playing in this."

Zoe gave her a nod, "well, you are certainly frank . . . which I find refreshing from strangers. But it doesn't take away the problem of the fact that yes, we are 'wary' of you for reasons we feel are necessary." Zoe glanced at Inara as if—

"Despite your inability to remember," Inara asking her first question, "you seem to have a very straightforward way about you. Do you remember anything about what you have done with your life?"

The woman sighed before whispering, "look, I don't remember _anything_—"

"But you've been in medical treatment before, enough to know that you're a problem patient. Were there any memories to go along with that realization?"

The woman thought for a moment before, "just nebulous feelings. It . . . it came as a bit of a . . . shall we say flash when your Doctor got started."

"My Captain," Zoe said suddenly, "said that you struck him as 'dangerous'. Any comment on that?"

_They're double teaming me to see if I get confused or caught off guard . . . but they're not professionals at it, they're doing it on the fly (_and how do I know _that_?_) so it's kind of awkward for them. But—_

Zoe and Inara exchanged a glance as the woman's eyes suddenly went 'far away'.

The woman was still in that distant look when she breathed, "now you're really going to think that this is scripted and that I'm playing . . . because I just had another 'flash'."

There was a moments beat before Zoe said, "let us determine what we feel or don't feel. Just tell us what this 'flash' was."

"I've been . . . interrogated . . . that's the word isn't it . . . before." The look faded from the woman's eyes. She then looked at the First Mate, "and if I may be so bold, I would say that I am being 'interrogated' now . . . but not by what my feelings tell me are experts." The woman gave Zoe what could only be described as a humorless smile. "Something tells me that I've been subjected to some very 'professional' interrogations before."

"And it doesn't scare you does it," Zoe told her, making it a statement rather than a question.

The woman looked at the First Mate with eyes suddenly hard, a piercing hardness that rather startled Zoe. When she replied, the woman's voice was so strained that the two women before her _strained_ to understand her. "That's crap and you know it." The hoarseness of the woman's voice cleared for the word 'crap' allowing some kind of accent to come through. But it was a single fleeting moment as the woman continued, "Everyone in this room is scared right now. I'm scared of you and what you might or might not do to me and/or you are scared of me because you believe for some reason that I might be a danger to you and there's no way that any of us can tell. Anybody in their right mind knows fear but—"

The woman was suddenly looking at Zoe with eyes both shrewd and knowing. A . . . 'feeling' passed between them . . . and the next thing that Zoe knew, the woman was giving her a knowing smile. "You know," the woman said, her tone adding to the look of the smile despite her difficulty in speaking, " . . . if I had to take a guess, it would seem to me that we have something in common Ms. First Mate."

Zoe managed to hide what could almost be described as a shock because she instinctively knew what the woman was talking about. The fact that the both of them were calm and capable despite the situation; the fact that the woman was right—the two of them were 'scared' of each other but both had the nerve and the poise, considered themselves hard and firm enough to never let their fright show to someone they did not know or the world around them in general. If it was true, and something inside of Zoe told her that it was, then such personal abilities would be a link between her and this strange woman tied to the bed.

But . . . still . . . Zoe knew that she, given the correct situation, was just as capable of lying through her teeth as as Mal or Jayne were. But considering her basic disposition of honesty—

On the other side of the coin, Zoe knew that she could be taken in by a convincing liar. Given what had happened in the episode involving the Captain's 'wife' as well as her own reaction to Mal's and hers former comrade who had taken the both of them in with his elaborate scheme to smuggle organs—

"Were you in the war?" Inara asked suddenly.

The woman looked sharply at her but didn't answer right away. Finally she shook her head, "I don't know. Something tells me . . . that I've known war . . . but it's no clearer than that."

"Browncoat?" Zoe said softly . . . hoping for a reaction.

The woman just looked at her . . . and after a moment shook her head.

* * *

"So?" Mal asked as Zoe and Inara came up the short stair into the Cargo Hold from the Lounge.

Zoe looked him square in the eye was that focused yet neutral look that she was capable of. "I don't think that her memory loss is fake . . . but I do agree with your estimation that she is dangerous . . . but—" and she glanced at Inara before looking back to Mal, "my gut instinct is that she's not dangerous towards us."

Mal considered this for a moment, eyes searching Zoe's face, even though he knew that Zoe, for all their close comradeship, only allowed him to see what she wanted him to see. He then looked at Inara, "so you had your chance to look and listen. What's your feelin?"

Inara was obviously thinking and picking her words carefully—

She had managed to hide her surprise when Mal had approached her (obviously uncomfortable in doing so but determined to get the task done) asking her to join Zoe in 'checking out' the mystery woman. Inara could detect that Mal was trying to 'break some of the ice' with her but for once he managed to do so through his Captain's persona without raising her hackles.

Mal intentionally didn't pass on to many of his own feelings telling the two women that he didn't want to 'color' their own impressions. But Inara knew him well enough to know that the woman intrigued him . . . or at least caught his curiosity and that sense of responsibility that he kept deep inside him. This made her own mood toward him 'soften' even though in this case she would have agreed anyway due to her own curiosity and annoyance at Jayne's crude attitude toward the whole situation.

"I think—" she said looking anywhere by Mal's face, "that she is extremely charismatic, very well spoken despite her current problems and she is able to project confidence in herself even though she doesn't have a clue as to her situation." She then gave a glance at Zoe before looking Mal right in the eyes.

"You're both right . . . she is a dangerous woman . . . made safe at the moment by a very real memory loss. But—" Inara took a breath before, "given all of her other irregularities, she could very well be a threat to us all if she regains her memory and . . . it turns out that she's someone we should fear. She has—" Inara looked away from Mal's face trying to crystallize her impressions, "a coolness, a calm center to her very much like someone with very extensive trainings in a number of intricate disciplines . . . or to be honest and see the other side of the coin, she could very well be another Jubal Early . . . but without his ramblings on philosophic matters."

Mal took this in, then closed his eyes and shook his head before asking tiredly, "so just what are you tellin me?"

"We need to be careful of her if it turns out that she's an agent of the government or one of the corporations," Inara said softly, allowing that softness to accent her words. "Because whatever she is . . . she is very, very good at it."

Mal sighed, "well . . . that's a good piece of news if we could do somethin with it." He looked to Zoe, "should we just dump her when we get to the Central Worlds?"

"You can't do that," Inara insisted.

* * *

_That . . . was a very interesting experience_.

The woman was alone again, the two woman—Zoe and Inara? having recently left. The woman realized that . . . for lack of a better word, the 'interrogation' had rolled back some of the fog which had been causing some things within her mind to be hazy. She realized that her thoughts were settling into paths and routines that she felt comfortable with. She also realized—

_You are frightened—in fact you are downright close to having your insides tie up into knots—_

_But somehow—you . . . I think it's called 'dealing with it' . . . and something is telling you that you've dealt with such things all of your life—_

_Some of those phantom images—dangerous—deadly—death! You've dealt with them—sometimes more easily—more successfully than others but something tells you that you've always managed to come out on top—to control them rather than having them control you._

_War—yes—you know war very well—and something is telling you that war has somehow taken up the vast majority of your life. But—not just war. . . . training. . . . discipline. . . . many such things that are a part of a long, tough life._

_And how do you feel about all of that?_

_Something tells me. . . . that that part of your life has been even rougher._

_There's . . . ice . . . somewhere inside of you . . . as well as a place where you lock certain feelings away—a Pandora's Box that should never be opened for everything that is stored up in there would overwhelm and destroy you—_

_That means—that you control yourself—your emotions—_

_Something tells me that you do that more than you should—that at times you've shut all of your emotions away—only to have them threaten to overwhelm you later—_

_What—do you do now? Which would be better to help you—find yourself?_

_You . . . truly are . . . lost._

* * *

Mal looked at Inara, saying a little more testily then he intended, "you just said that she was a danger to us, a big heap of it if she gets her memory back and she's Fed."

Inara stood for a moment, mouth moving for a moment before, "I—I said what I said . . . because it had to be said. But," she pulled herself up to her full height, "I sense that she's not someone we need to worry about." Inara held her hands up in a helpless gesture, "I don't know what it is that makes her so dangerous . . . I don't have any idea why she strikes me as being so good at whatever it is that she does . . . but I sense that there's no evil there."

Mal's eyes narrowed. He found it . . . more than a little strange that Inara would have an impression matching so closely with River's. He looked back to his Mate, the question in his eyes.

"It's hard to say sir," was her response. "I agree with Inara as well as what Simon said before; that whatever this woman is, we would probably be hard pressed to handle her without quite a fight but—"

Mal was mildly surprised considering that Zoe was so good at hiding her feelings.

"So," he said taking up the thread, "you want to go with your gut instinct?"

"To use a phrase," Inara suddenly put in, "that the woman is using all too often, something tells me that we have to hang onto her."

"At least," Zoe added, "until we hear something or she gets her memory back and we find there's a problem. If we drop her off right now in the Central Worlds in her condition . . . and the Feds find her . . . she could lead them back to us being that she's seen Simon and River. I'm not saying that she'd do it on purpose but it could happen. For that reason alone sir, I think we _have_ to hang onto her."

Mal nodded. Inara could tell that his caution was warring with his curiosity. Finally—

"So, do we turn her loose? Let her out of the Infirmary, let her—" he looked between the two women while swinging his arms around to indicate the entire boat.

"You can't keep her locked up," was Inara's immediate reply. Mal looked at the Companion for a moment. He knew how she disliked the thought of _anything_ chained up, but this seemed a bit strong even for her. He looked to Zoe—

"As you've been saying over and over again sir," she told him with a very pointed look, "if we're boarded, can't hide her if she's tied up in the Infirmary."

With a final sigh, Mal turned from the two women saying, "try to find her somethin decent to wear."


	8. Introduction

Chapter Eight – Introduction

Standing to the side of the Infirmary door, Zoe checked the cylinder of her short-barreled "Avenging Angel' model Colt Army conversion. Satisfied as to the loads it contained, she snapped the loading gate closed, spinning the cylinder gently and indexing the hammer before shoving the weapon down her pants into the small of her back. She had decided on the Colt versus her Jericho 941's because the .45 Long Colt round was heavier, slower and had more knockdown at very short range. The short barrel was also good for close-in work and the heavy frame could be utilized as a club at need. There was also the consideration that if the woman managed to take the gun away from her, she would only have five rounds (Zoe had indexed the hammer on an empty chamber as a safety precaution) to do damage with rather than the fifteen in the Jericho.

Both Inara and Kaylee watched her with obvious discomfort but Zoe had already spoken her peace. She honestly did not believe that the woman was currently a threat but she had not survived as long as she had without heavy personal/professional paranoia. Such things were ingrained into her very DNA these days. Why else did she still strip apples with her knife? Without another word she gave the other two a nod and in they went.

Simon looked up. He had just finished taking the IV out of the woman's arm. Mal was standing on the other side of the table back against the counter with his arms folded in front of him. At the movement in through the Infirmary door the woman looked up. Her eyes narrowed somewhat as they flashed across the three _Serenity_ women, staying just a moment longer on Kaylee whom she had not seen before. Then, knowing that something was about to happen, the woman looked to Mal.

"We need to get a few things straight," he said bumping himself away from the counter, locking his eyes with the woman's. "Seems like we've all come to believe that you're not a danger to us . . . so we're gonna let you loose. But—"

"I need to behave." The woman told him, addressing the statement before it was even completely out. Her voice was losing some of the 'hoarseness' but had not cleared being soft and wispy. "Don't touch anything that I don't know what it is," she continued, "don't go anywhere that's restricted, stay out of the way if there's trouble." She managed what could only be described as a grim smile in response to the slightly aback look on Mal's face. "My pardon Captain. But something tells me that I've given a similar speech to someone on more than one occasion."

Mal got his mental feet under him with, "ah—so—you know about bein aboard ships?"

The woman nodded. "The feeling has come to me while I've been lying here that I have spent a very good portion of my life in space." She broke eye contact and looked around the ceiling of the Infirmary. "There is a feeling of space that only spacers know." She looked back to Mal, "it took some time to come to me, but I recognize it now."

Mal kind of absently nodded his head. He found it interesting that she had said 'spacer' rather than 'Independent'. Did that mean that she could be just a regular Alliance citizen who had been a 'spacer'?

"Fine . . . swell . . . well—right now, we're gonna restrict you to the Lounge (Mal waved his arm toward the outside of the Infirmary) which is where your bunk will be (a thumb jerked back over his shoulder toward the passenger dorm area) and the Dining Area up top (one finger pointing up) where you can get some food. Zoe, Inara, and Kaylee," he waved to the three women waiting, "will help you get set up."

The woman took another glance at Kaylee when the Engineers name was said but then she looked back to Mal. Her gaze was—steady but her tone was, "I . . . sense that there is something else that you need to tell me Captain. Something I think . . . that I have also had to say to unknown parties on occasion."

Mal's face tried real hard to hide his surprise. It was almost like she was reading his mind. He didn't think she was though. Which meant something else to him; something like this woman had been in a similar position of responsibility like Mal's own.

Shaking that feeling off, he leaned down to the woman's face in order to say in a close whisper, "as I said, at the moment, my folks an I don't think you're a threat . . . but I find out different . . . I'll put a slug right between your eyes."

The woman's eyes held steady, not a flinch, or even a flicker of emotion despite Mal's almost intimate closeness, not a speck of reaction at the bluntness of the threat. After a moment, she just nodded, "you are most direct . . . and understood Captain," she breathed back at him. "You'll not have any problem with me toward your ship and crew. You have my word."

Mal held that steady gaze for a moment . . . finding that this woman's 'word' was strangely comforting to him. He gave her a nod back then drew himself up. He gave a glance at everyone about the room before saying, "good enough. I'll let the womenfolk get on with their business." He gave his 'womenfolk' a nod (trying not to notice that they were 'glaring' at him over the use of the term) as he headed out.

"Now that that is done," Simon said, moving to 'blackout' the Infirmary windows, "all I want to say is that I ask you to be careful as you start to move. All of your bones have healed enough (he had to catch himself from making some kind of comment about that strange and unusual 'healing') that you don't have to have a brace or cast but I would feel better if you used a cane. You're still anemic and you will be weak. So until your muscles get use to holding you up again—" Simon took a cane out of a cabinet, set it on the counter and with a gracious bow, "I'll leave you ladies to get our guest up and about." He then backed out of the Infirmary door closing it as he went.

It didn't take long for there wasn't much to do. Considering how close in size they were, Zoe provided the woman with panties and ship slippers. Inara had brought one of her longer/plainer robes. There was only one thing they currently lacked and considering the size of the woman's bust, she would have to go unholstered for a period.

Zoe stood back watching as Kaylee and Inara helped. Once they were 'introduced', the young engineer, in her usual fashion talked up a storm as they got the woman to sit up on the edge of the table. Inara formally asked for permission before working the woman's tangled, dirty mass of hair out of the bag next to where her head had been lying. Zoe's eyes were more on the woman herself as Kaylee helped her out of the Infirmary smock.

Simon hadn't been lying. Zoe vividly remembered how the woman's skin had looked almost shredded from all the cuts and gashes her ride in the pod had inflicted. As Inara and Kaylee got the woman undressed, Zoe could see only perfect, flawless skin, skin like someone in their early twenties; although Zoe would guess that the woman was somewhere in her mid thirties. Not so much as mark or a scar was visible anywhere. Zoe felt—

She wasn't sure what she felt. Her own skin bore the signs of her life. Modern medicine reduced the scaring from surgery to something basically invisible to anyone but a professional like Simon. But jagged lacerations on shoulder and side of torso from hot flying shrapnel left untreated for hours, pucker marks on both sides of a thigh from being impaled on a steel reinforcing rod from the shock wave of an exploding ammo truck—

Wash . . . had never mentioned them but Zoe knew that he saw them every time she was naked in front of him. Sometimes she wondered—

Zoe took a very slow deep breath to clear the feelings out of her. She was who she was . . . and her husband had known and accepted her as that before they were married. It didn't matter; it never would.

Zoe realized . . . that the woman was watching her intently even as Inara and Kaylee fussed over that massive catball of hair. Zoe matched that look—

And once again . . . felt a kindred spirit. Zoe knew without a doubt that this woman was also some kind of soldier, one of honor and integrity, one who had known pain, sadness, loss, defeat—

The woman gave a tiny wince, her head twisting as Inara tired to finger out a snag in all that hair.

Zoe—blinked—the moment broken. Zoe realized that she had felt something else in the woman but whatever it was was now lost. But Zoe's impression was. . . .

Someone who understood responsibility for another.

"Zoe?" Kaylee asked, "can you help?"

Zoe stepped over to assist in helping the woman into Inara's robe. Inara was holding the unruly mass of hair out of the way while Kaylee was starting to work the robe up one of the woman's arms. She wanted Zoe to assist with the other arm.

As she drew close Zoe maneuvered carefully as so to keep her 'back' as far away from the woman as she could. But after a moment the woman said in a soft voice, "you bend over too far Ms First Mate and that revolver in your backside will drop down into the crack of your butt."

Zoe barely managed to hide her surprise; she wanted to step back away out of sudden fear that the woman would snatch the weapon—

But she controlled the urge. She glanced back at the counter as she finished getting the robe on the woman, realizing that the woman had probably seen the gun in the reflection of the medical unit she had been standing in front of. If the woman had wanted the gun, Zoe knew she would have taken it.

Zoe looked back at the woman . . . who was looking straight ahead with no expression on her face. _Why did she do that?_ Zoe wondered. _Did she do it to make a point, to let me know that she could have taken it and yet didn't. _

Inara was saying something about taking the woman across the Lounge to the Passenger Dorm shower where a proper job could be done and how she was going to go to her shuttle to get some of her own hair products—

The woman, with Kaylee holding on to one arm for support, came forward off of the table, carefully and slowly coming to her feet. Zoe instinctively backed away. The woman came fully upright. Zoe found that she was maybe less than an inch taller than the woman but then she had her boots on while the woman was barefoot. Naked before each other, the woman would probably be just a shade taller than her own 5'10".

The woman was looking at Zoe again, that same, steady measured gaze.

This time, the woman said in that soft voice, "I think that there are parts of us where we are very much alike Ms. First Mate."

* * *

Despite it all—despite the possible prejudices through the influences of Mal's, Jayne's and Zoe's words and attitudes, despite all the strange and unusual things that Simon had to say about the situation, despite her own feelings and her own admitted preconceptions, Inara had to admit—she was impressed.

If the woman had been a Companion, she would have been among the elite.

The two of them were inside of the small shower within the Passenger Head just off to the side of the Lounge. The woman was leaning her back into the far corner while Inara was standing right on the door's threshold with her back 'out'. Zoe was standing directly behind her keeping an eye on things. Kaylee was waiting out-of-sight to the side; not wanting to 'peep' at the woman.

And despite it all, Inara didn't feel threatened . . . although she had to admit to feeling a little . . . intimidated. Which considering that the source of the intimidation was another woman, while it wasn't a 'new' sensation for her, but it was certainly 'novel' considering the circumstances involved.

But Inara also knew that the intimidation she was currently experiencing was from the 'raw charisma' that she felt from the woman. The fact that most of that charisma was at the moment unfocused only increasing the depth of Inara's appreciation of the woman. She anticipated many—interesting conversations with this woman in the days ahead.

Then there was the 'physical' side of things.

_Very tall, very slender, _Inara mused as she took in 'the entire package' standing in front of her. _Narrow hips with a slight but definite waist giving her a 'girlish' shape rather than 'womanly'. Well proportioned—neither her torso nor her legs are longer than the other. High, firm D-cups—very high and firm—almost twentyish instead of the mid-thirties she has to be. Simon was right about her being muscled but its sculpted athletic rather than bulked power._

Inara was incapable of having envy toward another woman's body. Such feelings were purged in the Temples, allowing only appreciation for the uniqueness and/or beauty of others. The woman before her certainly qualified for both terms.

Inara was in the process of folding the robe she had loaned the woman. She placed it into the upper storage shelf. She then started to take off her own sari—

As she did so, she was aware of the piercing gaze from the woman—

* * *

_Just what is going on?_ the woman wondered to herself. _Things are suddenly moving so fast. And it's not that you're . . . uncomfortable with that—it's—is it the lack of control over what is happening to you? That . . . makes you more than a little uncomfortable . . . and something tells me that you've always had something about being in—not—not 'in control'—but 'in command'._

Something else was causing a reaction within the woman that made her feel 'uncomfortable'. She was standing back in the corner of the shower. She felt—'tense'—she knew that she probably 'looked' tense—and maybe a little trapped—she found those facts, while they were not unfamiliar to her—

Something inside her told her that she had spent her entire life in situations that were inherently tense without her and her body showing any outward signs of the effects of the same. In fact—a sudden 'insight' told her that she had spent much of her life in situations where it was necessary and required that she _not_ show tenseness in tense situations as if—she had to do so in order to set an example for others.

That wasn't all. And the woman knew that much if not all of what she was currently feeling was directly due to the way her status had so suddenly changed. And with that status change—and the 'freedom' that had very suddenly come with it—new sensations, new impressions, almost constant 'little flashes' were assaulting just about every one of her senses. Something told the woman that she had always 'prided herself on steadiness and control' and she knew that at the moment she was nowhere near being steady and in control.

Also—some things made sense to her—too much did not—but what was weird about it, even some of the things which did not make sense—they somehow felt right.

An example of that was what she felt at that very moment; for she was buck-assed naked in that corner of the shower . . . and a woman who was virtually unknown to her was in the process of getting naked just a foot or two away with another woman—the ships First Mate no less—watching the procedures from outside and . . . nothing within her seemed to mind any of it. In fact, it seemed normal. A whole flood of flashes and impressions suddenly came to her of communal showers or even bathing in places like rivers, both sexes, totally businesslike, almost military—

Another flash told her that that was probably part of the truth. Her earlier 'flash' to the woman currently in the shower with her—Inara—told her that she had 'known war'. Many of her flashes and impressions were rapidly causing that to become clearer.

The woman was certain that she had spent most if not all of her life in a—military setting. Beyond that, things were very confusing for she had had flashes and impressions of all kinds of environments, ground (riding in vehicles-field camps-the bathing in rivers thing), air (cockpits-cargo areas in what could only be aircraft) and space (ships bridges-compartments and mess halls—berthing compartments). A bewildering mixture of common moments such as 'shining boots' and 'paperwork' thrown in with moments so dark, jolting, disjointed and impressionistic that she could only assume that they were frantic, dangerous, potentially deadly scenes from combat. All of the moments had the intimate sense that told her that they were actual memories of her personal experiences rather than something she had heard of or seen in another medium.

Almost none of it made sense to her. It was all she could do to try and control, try to somehow 'throttle down' the mass of haphazard emotions and impressions that were running through her.

She found that there was a part of her that could do that. It almost felt as if she could slip a mask over herself, over her emotions, that she was capable of locking an iron gate over her feelings showing the world only what she wanted it to see. It seemed to be something in her which was almost instinctive to her, part of that 'ice' that she had felt inside of herself earlier. Something else told her that it was a talent that circumstances in her life had forced her to 'learn'. Due to that, she knew she could do it even though at the moment her control over it was imperfect, such as the fact that she was currently having trouble concealing just how tense she was.

But somehow she knew that she could do it. All she needed was practice.

She knew that she could do that with a 'cold' certainty inside of her. She was coming to realize that there were other 'talents' that she possessed as well. Some of those had already come back although she might not have been truly aware of them. She had come to realize that one of these was how she 'looked at people'. Currently, she was still unsure of it—she was still trying to lock all the impressions and interpretations down—

But like everything else, she knew that all she needed was practice—

She made herself 'look' at the woman—Inara again, trying to get whatever it was that she sensed she could do to become clearer.

* * *

Inara ignored the woman's sudden, intense 'look'. She had seen its like before. In fact there were two others on board _Serenity_ who had a similar talent. She could tell that the woman wasn't really sure what was happening when she looked at someone in that way but if the woman was anywhere near as intelligent as Inara thought she was it wouldn't take her long to figure it out.

In professional terms, it was called the 'all-seeing' or 'omnipresent' gaze. It was the ability to instantly memorize with a single sweeping look the entire dimension of a room and the exact placement of everything in it. It was the ability to look at a person never before encountered and know just what kind of a person, their personalities and traits, was being seen. It was different than the talent that Mal Reynolds had. Mal could tell if a person was good or bad instinctively based on their 'aura', that invisible personal energy that people emitted. Zoe and Shepherd Book however had something just like what the woman was displaying. It was a total 'reading' of everything their eyes saw before them and unlike Mal's ability it extended to the physical environment they were in in addition to the people they encountered.

Companions received training in both aspects within the Temples. Like 'female intuition', such talents if discovered were encouraged. Even with those such as Inara herself, ones who didn't have a single ounce of this kind of talent (although she was fine with her highly-tuned intuition), they received in-depth training in the powers of observation in order to perceive and act on any need from their clients. Such training helped Inara recognize the talent when she saw it and in her opinion, the woman had it in buckets—probably as strong as the Shepherds. The fact also was that Inara personally thought her own ability to observe was 'better' than the 'all-seeing' talent for it was much less 'obvious', less 'intrusive' than that intense 'stare' even if it was also much less powerful.

For as had been said, what Inara was seeing was before her was—impressive.

Now, as she finished removing her sari, which she carefully folded in order to store it away, she wondered just how the woman would react to her own nude form—

* * *

The woman watched Inara disrobe. She tried to make sense of what it was that her senses were telling her.

_She's—Inara—is very sure of herself—very comfortable with the fact that she's nude in front of me. She's . . . the way she's standing—it's almost as if she's presenting herself to me for inspection. But . . . there's nothing—she doesn't seem to be seeking approval—it's as if—_

A humorless smile came to the woman's face. In that cracked, withered voice, the woman said, "I take it that you wish to come close . . . and you want to hear from me that I won't bite."

* * *

A smile with humor in it came onto Inara's face—yes, the woman was just as smart as the Companion thought she was. "I have intensive training," Inara told her quietly, "in massage and relaxation techniques; in the care of skin and hair and familiarity with the needs of those suffering from old or debilitating injuries that may assist you if you find that you are having difficulties with any pain or stiffness in your movements or difficulties with your tactile senses. But I also must have permission to enter your personal space and to know if there is anything that you would find uncomfortable or unacceptable."

The woman's piercing look was back for a moment. Then she asked in a tentative voice, "are you a nurse—or a member of some kind of healing order?"

Inara had to struggle for a moment not to let a chuckle escape her lips. _Better not let the Shepherd hear that I might be part of an 'order'. He might have something to say about that._

Once she was sure she had internal humor under control, Inara told the woman, "I have qualities and abilities from both of what you say (_let's just not mention that I'm a Companion just yet. If she's from one of the more conservative social or political factions she might react badly)_. If I may, can I at least assist you with your hair." She hesitated for a moment before adding, "as well as providing what you need if you have other matters of feminine hygiene to attend to." With that she held up a female depilate device.

There was a moment of a most peculiar look in the woman's eye for a moment followed by what appeared to be embarrassed shock crossing the woman's features. Inara realized that it had taken that small moment for the woman to recognize just what it was that Inara was holding then react to the fact that another woman was commenting on—

As Inara had this thought, the woman, in what appeared to be an involuntary reaction, looked down at her legs, one hand impulsively reaching up into her underarm—the bruising and scaring might have vanished but current conditions of those places of her body were definitely—furry—much more so than the weeks the woman had been on _Serenity_ could possibly account for. This had to mean that if the woman was of the social type that attended to such feminine needs, she had been unable to do so for a substantial period before they had found her in the pod.

Inara again had to stifle a smile—as a very real blush came to the woman's face—almost immediately to be banished as a mask seemed to drop over the woman's features, attempting to block off all visible evidence of emotion.

"No embarrassment . . . no intimacy . . . is intended," Inara told her in a gentle, humble tone. "And if such things are against a cultural or religious—"

The woman held up a hand stopping the Companion. Inara waited as the woman mentally—regrouped.

"It has come to me," the woman finally rasped, "that indeed I was in the military—" she paused as if trying to recall or organize her thoughts. "It seems to me that when we were out in the field—" the woman faltered as if trying to put the concepts together—

"You would defer such . . . female practices," Inara filled it in for her, "due to the necessity and reality of the 'field' situation." As a part of expanding her knowledge about the Verse and the diversity within it, Inara had once asked Zoe how being a soldier effected her being a woman. The resulting conversation had been very interesting and informative and was now proving to be useful. "But," Inara went on in an understanding tone, "in a more . . . normal situation . . . you would follow more normal female practices."

After a moment, the woman nodded her agreement.

Inara held the item out in her hand as if it was an offering.

The woman looked at it for a long moment, then she slowly came out of the corner, reaching out her one hand. With that acceptance, Inara moved closer to the woman, easing herself into the woman's personal space—

"I'm . . ." and there was a definite hesitation in the woman's voice, "more than a little shaky still. And . . . while I might have recognized what this device is—I'm . . . not sure if I have the current correct memory as to this device—if it had any particular operating mechanism." The woman's tone sounded like she was having trouble admitting it to herself—but Inara instinctively knew via her Companion training, that the woman would put aside personal discomfort in order to 'get the job done.' All the Companion needed to hear to complete the transition into the woman's comfort zone was—

"Can you help me?"

Inara bowed her head slightly, "I would be honored to do so."

* * *

"Are you crazy?" Jayne half squealed.

"That's been believed by more'n a few folks," Mal said easily as he finished helping Wash get supper ready to go onto the table. River and Book had been helping the Pilot in starting to prepare the meal when Mal came in after leaving the Infirmary. Jayne had been sitting at the table, glancing warily at River any time she had come near the butcher block containing the knives. A general conversation had been going on which Mal had joined into. It wasn't until Wash was about ready to actually put the meal on the table that the Merc turned to Mal and asked, "are we gonna dump the witch on one of the smaller moons thereabout?"

"We ain't dumpin her," was Mal's reply which had caused Jayne's reaction.

"Zoe raised the notion," Mal continued to state after Jayne's outburst, "that her memory since the crash seems to be good. If the Fed's get ahold of her, she's seen Simon and River. If we have to dump her, it won't be on a world with so many Feds."

Jayne seemed to relax a little when he stated, "but we are dumpin her. Somewhere! Soon!"

"No we're not," Mal said very plainly as he moved a pot to the table.

Jayne held both hands out in question, "but why?"

"No reason too at this point."

"No reason," Jayne seemed completely mystified. "She's an Alliance spy who's . . . been turned into a witch—she can probably see through walls, outrun a bullet, be stronger than a train, jump over buildins—"

"I think," Book broke in in his most reasonable voice as he brought the next pot over, "that you're suffering from a case of overactive imagination my friend. That happens sometimes to smart men such as yourself. But consider, do you really think that Zoe and the Captain would allow someone who is really dangerous to stay on board." He glanced at Mal before continuing with, "I seem to remember several unsavory individuals rapidly leaving this vessel—usually feet first."

"Well," Jayne said reluctantly even though he was pleased by Books flattery, "I seem to be the only one smart enough to realize that trouble should be gotten rid of at the first stop. But I'm hopin that at least you'll keep her locked up somewhere."

Simon was just coming into the Dining Area as Jayne said this. He stated to open his mouth to say something but Mal, who was just sitting into his chair at the table told the room beat him to it. "Nope, she's free as a bird even as we speak . . . or maybe eat," as he started piling things on his plate from the pot he had carried over.

Jayne just stared at his Captain with open mouthed disbelief.

The meal got started—although things were very quiet at the table. Jayne kept shooting angry glances, even if it was just Book asking for the beverage container or Simon passing a plate to his sister.

Then, a noise from the aft passageway.

All eyes looked up as Inara stepped through, holding back a hand—

Helping the woman step through the hatch and down the short stair.

Inara's robe, which was full length on the Companion, covered the woman down to someplace more than a bit above her calf's. Considering the Companions smaller stature, things were—a bit tight through the bust. The woman was moving slowly but confidently with the assistance of the cane provided by Simon. As she came into the Dining Area, she took a long slow look around, her intense eyes seemingly seeing everything.

Book had come to his feet and moved forward to direct the woman to the unoccupied end chair. As her eyes came to him, seeing him for the first time outside of when he was at the foot of the Infirmary bed, those eyes and that look stopped him for just a moment. He then gave her a disarming smile, taking that piercing look from her with a small bow saying, "madam, I am Book, Shepherd of the Good Lord, may I assist you to your seat?"

The woman seemed to hesitate for a moment as if evaluating the offer, those eyes examining Book very closely—then with a small nod, she held out the hand that wasn't gripping the cane, saying softly but hoarsely, "my good . . . Shepherd (she sounded tentative with the term), that would be most welcome."

Muttering, Jayne came to his feet. He started to pile food on his plate as everyone looked to him. He pulled away from the table, his eyes going to the woman, "might as well leave on my own 'fore I'm kicked out anyway for speakin my mind." With that he stalked out through the forward hatch.

A pail of cold water seemed to come down on the Dining Area—

Inara slipped into her place between Book's chair and Mal, Kaylee sat next to River and Zoe next to Wash. As Zoe sat, she placed a hand on Wash's shoulder as her eyes caught those of the woman, "this is my husband, he's our Pilot."

The woman nodded to Wash who just stared—

Until Zoe elbowed him in the ribs.

Book finished pulling out the woman's chair—

She hesitated before sitting—it looked like she was trying to remember something—

Then it struck her, she twisted her body around, reaching with her free hand.

When she turned away, those with a clear view were able to see the now thick, straight fall of hair that disappeared out of sight behind/below the level of the table. The woman reached around, gathered it up, looking as if she had once completed this act routinely but was now forced to work it through in stages. She managed to get it into a ball which filled her hands at which time she sat, placing the ball of hair in her lap.

"That's a lot of hair," Wash said under his breath.

Unfortunately, in the silence of the Dining Area, it was clear to everyone—and it earned him another elbow in the ribs.

"Sure is," Kaylee spoke up, her delight at the new person at the table obvious. "Took full power on the water extractor to get it dry." She looked at Simon, "you didn't do as much damage as you were 'fraid of." Kaylee nodded across the table, "Inara had to trim out some rough ends and feather in some of the shorter locks you had to hack off but . . ." she looked back at the woman with a beaming smile, "can't tell a difference. Ain't seen hair like that in a spell. Only girls in these parts who have hair down to their knees are some of the priestesses."

Book was resuming his chair between Zoe and Inara. The rest settled, there was an expectant hush—

"Your pardon Captain," the woman said, straining her voice to make sure Mal could hear her, "I wish to thank you and all of those here for allowing me to sit at your table. I will try not to be a burden and if I can do useful work as a repayment I will do so." She hesitated a moment before, "the man who left because of my presence; is that presence going to be a problem? I do not wish to cause disharmony among your crew."

Mal gave her a wry smile. "Don't fret. We've all been a bit . . . disharmonious among ourselves at one time or nother." He straightened in his chair and waved at the table, "have what you like, Doctor says you need some decent food in you—unfortunately our Pilot cooked tonight so you will have to take what's here."

"Ha, ha," Wash singed-songed.

* * *

After diner, Mal was heading up for his turn on the Bridge. When he stepped onto it, his eyes snapped to Jayne who was leaning against the co-pilot console with an angry look on his face.

"You're serious?" was all the Merc said.

Mal felt his own gaze go hard. "I am."

"Why?"

Mal considered for a moment telling Jayne to get the hell out but—

"River . . . says she's okay."

"River," retorted the Merc angrily, "once went wild and cut me without warnin."

"Zoe and Inara also feel that she's not a threat."

"Since when have you become—what's that thing we saw on the monitor at Baslack station—'warm and feely'? You should have shot her in the pod. Mal! She's—"

"My gut," Mal told Jayne with a real hard look, "tells me different. It told me then—_that's_ why I didn't shoot her in the pod—as much as I denied it, as much as I hid it and it's tellin me the same now."

Jayne didn't look convinced. "Ain't like you,"

Mal waved an arm in frustration. "It told me 'bout Saffron but I ignored it! _You_ were ready to buy her from me with your favorite rifle!"

Jayne wouldn't be convinced. "She's trouble Mal; a spy's who's a witch. The Doc says nothin 'bout her makes sense."

Mal raised both hands to stop Jayne. "Look, none of us have to trust her. We'll all keep an eye on her. But the main thing is that we don't have to worry 'bout being boarded and searched if she's not locked up! She can go out onto the hull like Simon and River. . . ."

"And go right over to the Purple Belly's ship," Jayne would not be dissuaded.

Mal's mind flailed about for a moment before, "you can put one of your grenades into her suit. Blow it if she drifts away from the hull."

That 'lit' the Merc's eyes. "Now you're talkin some sense."

"And it's not like she's gonna stay aboard,' Mal continued now that he had Jayne thinking on a new track. "When we get where we're goin, we can ask around. _Someone_ had to know somethin 'bout someone like that. If we can maybe figure out who and what she is, maybe we can just let her walk away and be done with her."

That made Jayne think. "Yeah . . . yeah . . . and if no one does, that would have to mean that she was a spy," he gave Mal a cunning look, "which would mean that someone would have to take her out to keep her from blowin the whistle on Simon and River."

Mal wasn't happy with the turn of Jayne's thoughts but at the moment, it was the best that he could expect.

* * *

"Will you need help getting back down into the Lounge?"

The woman looked up at the—Shepherd who was standing next to her chair, one hand again held out in an offer of assistance. She managed a small smile, something in his—'courtly manner' (at least that's what she thought the term was) reminded her of something . . . or was it someone—

"I probably should take you up on that offer," she wheezed back at him. "Something tells me that I've spent time as an invalid and that I didn't always . . . behave . . . sometimes with consequences."

"Can't have that now can we," Book told her as he assisted her with her chair. He glanced up at Wash who with the help of Inara and River was starting to clear the table. Wash started to open his mouth—only to have the Companion who was right next to the Pilot place her open palm over it while making a 'go on' motion toward Book with her other hand. Book gave Inara a grateful nod of his head; it was his turn to assist with the dishes that evening and here he was bugging out—he managed to keep from breaking into a grin over the look on Wash's face.

The woman stood. Book could tell that she was being careful with her balance and footing. Even so, he also noticed that she once again 'scanned' the Dining Area as she stood.

As she did so, the Shepherd noticed—that she had noticed just how quickly the Captain had left before the rest had been finished with the meal followed by the First Mate gathering up the Doctor as soon as the rest of the group was done, also leaving out of the forward hatch. There was a most—particular look on her face for a moment—most definitely an 'I wonder' expression—

"This way my dear," Book told her, deftly taking her hand that wasn't holding the cane, turning her about before she could complete her train of thought—

_She's a sharp one_ the Shepherd said to himself. _Hope that she doesn't see too much into whatever the Captain has up his sleeve—_

* * *

Mal was still on the Bridge. Jayne had left; he had been joined by two others. He knew that one of them wasn't exactly 'thrilled' about the nature of the conversation but then again, Mal as always really didn't care all that much about this man's personal feelings when they came against more practical things like survival.

". . . so can you do it? Long enough for us to get to Poseidon and a piece of time after we touch down?"

Simon was clearly unhappy but, "I understand." And he did too. What the Captain was proposing—made sense however uncomfortable it made him personally. However—

"I'm a little . . . reluctant," Simon told the Captain and Zoe who had brought him to the Bridge to have this little conversation with Mal, "only because I'm not sure what I could give her to do the trick without risking some kind of reaction on her part. So much of her chemistry is . . . strange. I don't have the equipment for a real in-depth analysis but I'm beginning to think based on the serial blood tests I ran on her during and after the seizures that there was some kind of series of drugs in her; drugs for which I have no clue as to what they were; the traces were so small that I couldn't do a comparison run with known narcotics –not that I would have been able to find out much anyway given the . . . no offense Captain . . . nature of the very basic analysis equipment provided on board. But then again I don't think that would have mattered anyway because what analysis I could manage to wring out, the traces of drugs I found appeared like so much else with this woman, to be types I've never seen or heard about." The Doctor thought another moment before, "I'll try to come up with something though."

"Much obliged Doctor," Mal told him. "It would certainly make things a lot easier."

* * *

The woman looked into the sleeping cubicle, now put together for her comfort. At a very soft footstep, she turned. Simon came up to her holding out a small cup. "I really don't want to give you a regular sleeping pill," he told her. "I'm hoping that this herbal potion from Inara will do the trick instead. You need natural sleep—as much of it as you can get. I don't want you up for at least a day."

The woman took the cup saying, "thank you Doctor. I can't tell you how much I appreciate everything you've done."

Simon nodded—stood waiting—

The woman then realized, "oh, sorry Doctor, but I'm going to put this right here," as she leaned into the cubicle, setting the cup on the side table. "I wish to think a little bit before I go down. I have to get everything I saw and heard today properly pigeonholed."

Just for a tiny moment, the Doctor seemed a little nonplussed—but he then nodded with understanding before asking, "anything at all coming back?"

The Woman shrugged. "Unconnected bits. One came to me while—Inara?—was helping me in the shower. It seems that there is someone who has helped me before to get my hair put back together after some . . . incident. I got the impression that it was an . . . Asian girl with hair even longer than mine."

Simon nodded thinking that it was probably a Chinese girl, maybe a professional stylist who specialized in long hair. He had known of a couple of them on Osiris.

"Something was missing for me at dinner," she continued, chasing down the fleeting memory again. "Something tells me that I . . . normally drink something other than whatever the beverage was that was served." She held up a hand when Simon smiled, "I don't want anyone to think that it was less that the best hospitality. I am forever grateful. And I thought that your pilot—?" she seemed to be searching her memory for a name—coming up empty because no one had ever told her the name of _Serenity's_ pilot other than the First Mate's 'husband'.

"Wash," Simon told her. "It's a nickname/contraction from his last name, Washburne," he added at her questioning look.

She gave him a tired smile. "Well, I thought he did very well. Something tells me that I've had worse fare at a table; in fact it tells me that I've had _much_ worse at one time or another."

Simon smiled again saying, "well, enough bits come along and you can make an entire picture." He then nodded to her and pointed to one of the other cubicles. "Sleep well, and if you have any problems during the night, I will be right there."

"Thank you Doctor."

Simon turned and headed back up the stairs for the Dining Area.

The woman stood for the longest time, kind of forlornly looking about her. She then turned and went into the cubicle, sliding the door closed behind her.

For a long time she sat there—wondering.

Deep inside—the fear, the anxiety bubbled and churned. Once again, part of her wondered for just a moment how she was able to keep such a firm control on that turmoil deep inside her. But she had already been through these thoughts—somehow she knew that she could do so, that she could control it—that somehow she had spent major parts of her life doing so. Something told her that there had been times when she had failed to completely control such emotions but right now deep inside her was an overwhelming force of will that would not let that happen.

She did not know what to do next. But also deep inside her, in a place right next to that force of will, was something—almost like it was knowledge—something that told her that whatever happened—things would somehow work out and she would someday see—

Even if at the moment, she didn't have a clue other than those deep, deep feelings—that she even had friends, a home and maybe even family to go to.

Something like the family that she had instinctively seen at that dinner table earlier.

But whatever was to happen, she somehow knew to just trust her instincts—

And take it one thing at a time.

She glanced at the cup . . . and again thought of that 'family' at that evening's dining table. She then thought about the Captain, the First Mate, and the Doctor. Such different personalities and yet there were parts she sensed where they were much alike.

Part of that was their determination to protect those they felt close too—

Such as the 'family' at the table.

As such, the woman didn't think that whatever was in the cup was suppose to kill her. Her instincts told her that it was suppose to knock her out for a period. She had no idea what the Captain and his crew hoped to accomplish while she was 'out'. But the fact that they were all more 'curious' about her rather than hostile might be part of the answer.

As for the rest of it?

That particular train of thought also brought another particular thought to the forefront of the woman's mind—such as why would she 'know'—how could she so easily recognize—what it was that the Captain and Doctor were planning on doing to her even though they were trying so hard to hide it . . . for obvious reasons on their part.

Which in turn brought to her mind—what kind of person was she—what kind of life had she led where such a 'plot' directed toward her would be easily recognized by her. But even more than that—what kind of life had she led that would allow her to so easily 'accept' such a plot against her as long as she believed that they in fact did not intend any true harm as a part of it.

For such was her belief.

As far as any answer to those questions—she thought she had put her finger on the main factor involved.

The woman had come to accept that . . . there was something she recognized within the Captain . . . something that she had come to realize was was a part of her own personality as well.

She had given the Captain her 'word' that she would cause no problem. She had seen the acceptance of that 'word' in his eyes.

The woman had realized that they both were very much soldiers of 'honor and integrity'. She instinctively knew that if the Captain intended to harm her—or turn her over to someone who would harm her—he would have never allowed her her freedom—he would have told her to her face what he intended, in words just as plain and simple as his threat to her had been before her release.

She somehow knew . . . that portions of the Captains honor were damaged—that sad, angry look/tone that was always brimming under the surface of his eyes and voice. But she thought it was something in his past. Some kind of defeat or betrayal he had been forced to accept. She somehow knew that such a past would only make him stronger and more direct in the present.

How did she know that?

Something told her very strongly that she had experienced the exact same thing at one point of her life. Something else told her that whatever it had been had finally healed—but the time it had taken, the pain she had endured—had lasted many, many years—and now—it seemed as if she had a new wound, recently inflicted.

For something within her—she knew that there had been times in her life where she had besmirched her honor—that unlike the Captain, it had been something that she had allowed to happen to herself—even now the pain that came with the thought—it was as if she didn't want to think about that, as if she was running away from what could only be a recent memory involving something which was too painful to think about.

Was that why she was here? Had she been running from something that she had done to herself—something _she_ had done to her own self which had blackened her being within her own eyes—

Somehow, the dull, very heavy ache in her heart that came with the thought gave her a clue as to the answer.

So, after another moment of reflection, she took the cup of potion which she drank. She lay down, snuggling into the strange bed and sheets—

Partially rising a moment later—something was nagging at her awareness—something about what she had to do when she laid down to sleep—something tugging at her just like something had as she had tried to sit down at the dinner table—

That caused her to realize—she then gathered all her hair up which she then piled 'above' the pillow in order to remove the possibility of her rolling over onto it and 'hanging' herself with it in the middle of the night.

She then settled back down again—

And somehow she knew that she was capable of willing herself to sleep even without the potion—despite the fact that she was as probably as lost as any human had been.

She hoped that if she dreamed—that she would dream of home—

Maybe she would find the reason for the ache at the center of her being—and if she could acknowledge it, allow it to heal—

Maybe much of herself would come back to her.

Maybe—

* * *

A/N: Just a note on the guns utilized or mentioned in reference to Zoe at the beginning of this chapter. In watching _Serenity,_ I was unable to accurately figure out just what kind of pistol Zoe was using during the confrontation with Patience prior to her being hit in the vest. When it was holstered in a cross-draw rig on the front of her belt, I initially thought it was a Smith & Wesson Schofield. However, I was able to find a screen shot from 'leavemethewhite(dot)com' (album 1 photo 594) that clearly showed it was a cut-down 1860 .44 Colt Army with the assumption that it was a Richards-Mason cartridge conversion (can't tell because we can't see the right side) due to the fact that she would not be using an original Black Powder Cap & Ball pistol in her day and age. The fact that I had never seen such a 'short' version of the Colt Army (a modification normally restricted to the 1873 Peacemaker where they were known as the 'Sheriffs' or 'Storekeeper' models) caused me to have to hunt around a little more until I located the 'Avenging Angel' modification.

The 'Jericho 941's are the two silver/chrome semi-auto's Zoe used during the assault on Niska's Skyplex in _War Stories_. These I initially thought were chrome Beretta 92F's but upon closer inspection saw that they were too 'square' to be Beretta's. Had about given up hope to properly I.D. them until I looked at the _Firefly/Serenity_ entry in IMFDB (Internet Movie Firearms Data Base). Even there, the guns were not actually 'listed' in the database but were 'mentioned' in the background of a photo from _War Stories_ displaying Wash's Colt Python.

I hope that this story continues to live up to expectations. I would be glad to hear what you all think.

Until next time

I remain

Your Humble and Devout Servant

The Wise Duck


	9. Searching

Chapter Nine – Searching

* * *

_Now I'm really worried_ Mal thought. _Things are goin too well . . . and when things go well, we get into trouble._

After successfully offloading their shipment of storage bins at the warehouse of the owner company (Mal didn't even try to smile when the on-site Alliance tax agent removed the Fed's part from his payment – the Agent who knew an Independent when he saw one made sure it was as painful a process as he could make it) they were in the air, making their way around the planet, shifting over to one of the poorer docks in the largest city of Poseidon's secondary continent.

Recent word about The Verse was that this place was relatively quiet of Alliance surveillance despite the heavy Fed presence that always came with being in The Core. That same recent word said that this area was active and sophisticated enough that Mal hoped that various places and sources would be available to answer quite a few of their current questions. Due to the heavy Alliance presence, there were individuals who could be expected to obtain information from Alliance sources without fear of too much attention. Some of those individuals would have to be paid; others could be brought in through old debts owed or the promise of Boarder or Rim information later.

Alongside of these there were also 'semi-official' organizations working under the Alliance thumb, part of the Alliance strategy of regulating all forms of conduct and employment. These could be more difficult to work, but their data was generally more reliable at a price or barter that was mostly within reason.

The group of _Serenity_ people going ashore had as usual, upon word from the Pilot that they were on final, gathered in front of the Cargo Bay doors waiting for Wash to touch down. Jayne was directly next to Mal, a light of zeal in his eyes and an eager look on his face. Mal had given the Merc the job of finding the 'unofficial' Mercenary network and pumping it for any news or information about a tall, long-haired Amazon who might or might not be a Merc but who certainly would be known even if through rumor. This task, along with the fact that the woman had been—after a little bit of help from the Doctor—sleeping for better that two days straight thereby keeping her out of Jayne's sight had improved the Merc's disposition. Mal knew that Jayne was determined to find something that would justify their getting rid of the woman just as soon as they could manage it—or even better, something that would allow the Merc to break the woman's neck.

Shepherd Book, Zoe, and Mal himself had similar plans in and among their normal dirtside chores. Zoe would work the 'semi official' part. She would check in with outfits like the 'Association of Bodyguards' and the 'Guild of Security Specialists'; both of which had heavily recruited from the ranks of former Browncoat's who had opted to 'fit in' rather than take the Independent route. There would be people in those organizations who knew Zoe as well as other people who knew of Zoe by reputation. Unlike Mal, Zoe could be expected to 'live and let live' with those sort of folks if for no other reason than their use as an information source. She might not like it but she could live with it. Mal on the other hand would rather see all those who had turned their backs on the Independence movement strung up on a tall gallows.

Book would only say that he would check with several 'sources'. He would not however say anything beyond the word 'source'. Considering what the crew thought about some of the more mysterious aspects of the Shepherd, none of them decided to press it any further. There was something in the fact however that Mal just might trust anything that Book got from one of his 'sources' more than anything that anyone else came up with.

Inara had departed for an 'appointment' as soon as the ship had made atmo, agreeing to check her own contacts after her appointment was completed. She told Mal that her sense of curiosity was what drove her together along with a 'desire' to see if they could help the woman retrieve what was lost. Mal almost believed that Inara almost believed it.

The degree of Alliance presence would keep Simon and River on board the boat but that would also make them available to help Wash who would make multiple supply runs to restock. Kaylee, after finishing her post flight chores, would take up her normal position at the foot of the ramp to answer questions or queries for work.

They all felt that final 'sway' as Wash flared out for landing. Moments later, came the 'thump' as they touched down. Jayne was already punching the buttons to open the doors and lower the ramp. As they stepped out onto it, Mal gave his usual, "alright, let's make sure that we ask the right questions to the right people without the wrong folks listenin. Jayne—"

"I know," the big Merc waved the admonition off with one hand. "Believe me; I want to be rid of this problem so bad that I _will_ stay sober." He saw the look in Zoe's eye and he shrugged with a smile adding, ". . . well, mostly sober. Kinda people I'm gonna see won't talk to me if I'm completely sober."

Mal turned to Kaylee, "the stuff the Doc gave her in that drink should keep her knocked out for a while longer. But if she wakes up, she's not to leave the ship. Keep your radio handy in case you have to yell for help."

"And if she takes my radio away from me?" Kaylee asked, only sounding like she was joking.

Mal playfully tapped her cheek. "Talk nice to her. Everybody is nice to you when you talk nice to them aren't they?"

"Yeah right," was all the Mechanic said as the crew started to walk away. She stood for a minute allowing 'real' air to full her lungs before a roar from inside of the Cargo Bay brought Kaylee's head around to see Wash starting out with the mule. They exchanged waves as he passed her. Kaylee followed him with her eyes, her gaze then shifting toward all of her crewmates as they made their way along, finally vanishing into the crowd and alleys in multiple directions. The Engineer sighed, wishing that one of these days, when they were down in a fairly big modern city . . . that she could be the one to go off seeing things.

At that thought, she blew out a resigned breath before turning to go complete those pesky post-flight chores.

* * *

Her eyes came open. It was dark—but it wasn't darkness. After a moment, she pushed the hair back from her face, looking out at an unfamiliar room, a long moment passing before she remembered the sleeping cubicle.

That told her where she was but other than that—

_Something's missing_ she thought as she lay there. She rolled onto her back, stretching out with her senses in a way which was instinctive of her.

_It's quiet . . . the quietest I've heard it here._ She continued to try and become one with her surroundings, being rewarded with . . . _the engines are off. We must have landed. I wonder where we are?_

She grunted grimly to herself. Would it matter where they were? For even then, she would still be lost.

And for the moment she was still alive—nothing having happened to her while she was 'out'. Maybe what she believed about the Captain really was the truth.

She slowly pushed herself up. Things were—tight—really stiff. How long had she been down? The Doctor said that he wanted her to sleep for at least a day; she didn't have a clue how long he intended to put her 'out' with whatever was in the potion. Normally her time sense would tell her approximately how much had passed (how did she know that?), but it like everything else was out of whack, telling her nothing.

No, there was something—

_Whatever it is, go with it_ she suddenly said to herself sensing another feeling within her that might not be instinctive—but was honed into her by endless years of training until it became instinct.

_Empty a mind that is already empty_ her 'self' told her_. Something is telling you that there is something there to find. Seek it . . . find it . . . grasp it . . . take it and let it flow into you._

She did just that. She let her mind go blank—and allowed the feeling to take her.

Slowly . . . ever so slowly . . . she began to move. She felt her barely healed bones, the cold stiff muscles, the parts of her body abused or disused and she moved through them. The movements started slow, barely any actual motion to them; things were being checked, tested—

Pain was felt, identified, and absorbed. A being, a self that was lost and alone was acknowledged and forgiven, 'Center' was sought — after a moment it was found—another moment was taken to appreciate it and after that—the Kata began.

It was movement that started small and built from there. It had been designed by its makers to train and tone the body and mind even in the confines of a cell or a cage. It could be expanded on in any number of ways based on the persons circumstances and expand it the woman did, for although she knew that it was hopeless, strong impressions told her that one must always have hope and any hope which existed could be found somewhere in the Kata.

Time was meaningless as her body moved, as strength returned, as injury, disability, stiffness was found and temporarily contained allowing her freedom to welcome the parts of her that was her body to come back to her, healed and whole after too much trauma. It worked to merge her body and that which was 'her', her 'soul/mind/self' which she had currently been able to recover into a single whole. It worked at pushing through those injuries, disabilities and stiffness—it made to slide around all that lost 'self' to focus and 'Center' what she did have in a way that both calmed the storms inside of her as well as acknowledging everything that was still lost, pledging to work until all that was lost was recovered and everything made whole.

Motion followed motion, movement followed movement, the Doctors cane forgotten—unneeded—her mind synchronizing with her body, her awareness stretching out beyond her body—

Awareness—

The woman stopped, her eyes opened, she looked out—

Submerged in the Kata she now came out of it. She saw, even though she had known without seeing, that she had moved outside of the cubicle she had slept in. She was on the open floor directly in front of the cubicle area, her Kata stopped in mid movement—

For she was being watched.

The young girl—whose mind was uncommon—was halfway up the ships ladder that led up to the Dining Area. The girl was standing as a statue, those large eyes that saw more than others, eyes that saw the meanings behind mere expressions; those eyes were locked on her. Those eyes were so often troubled by things—glimpses—ghosts of memories that the girl couldn't comprehend—which meant that at this moment—there was a kinship there that could be felt by both. Beyond that, the girl's eyes just as often held clues to the depths of a universe that only a truly brilliant mind could understand. But—

The woman sensed—she knew—a perversion had been attempted on the mind behind those eyes—and the girl that mind belonged to—the pain—the agony—the fear and the fearfulness was plain to see for those who could.

The girl saw the woman, who was naked except for the panties Zoe had loaned her as Inara's constricting robe would have hindered the flow of the Kata, the woman was poised in the Kata, her hair draped down her back like a thick brown curtain—

In her mind, the girl saw the woman naked in ways that could not be seen with the normal human eye—the girl saw the woman—and saw once again something within the woman that which was _something_ that the girl needed.

Their eyes met—and a silent understanding passed between them.

The woman was now the statue, poised in a outstretched position of Kata, dipped down so the ends of her draped hair were brushing the floor beneath her, a poise—a position that should have left the woman's muscles shaking to hold it—

But it looked as if she was doing it effortlessly despite the abuse and damage that had so recently been placed upon that body.

The girl slowly came down the ladder, down the ladder to the floor, and across the few steps of floor until she stood before the woman.

With a single graceful movement, the girl's arms and legs swirled about—the girl matched the position of the woman in Kata.

And as if they were one, the Kata resumed.

A woman whose mind was lost—

A girl whose mind was forcibly taken—

They moved as one. The older one leading, showing, teaching, the younger one following—seeing—learning—even if their movements were so close together that it appeared to be a dance long practiced—

The woman realized that the girl could read and anticipate the Kata within her mind—but the woman also knew that it was all new to the girl so the woman kept the pace steady and movement's simple—for the moment.

A woman who feared that what was lost would never be restored to her.

A girl who was fighting to become what she once was despite the evil which had been visited on her.

A girl who knew the love and support of those around her even if they didn't understand.

A woman who longed for the love she had once known—because somehow she knew—she had intentionally thrown it away in a moment of madness, anger and disillusion.

Two in paired Kata—together seeking all they were missing.

Even later—when the woman started to subtlety pick up the pace—

* * *

_Serenity_ had touched down right after local noon. Wash got back from his first run around mid-afternoon. He drove the mule up the ramp into the Cargo Bay, Kaylee following up behind him. As Kaylee started to pick the various packages out of the trailer, Wash hopped off, spotting Simon who was just in the process of coming down the forward ladder. The Doctor had been reading on the Bridge, 'enjoying' the sunlight coming in the main viewports while staying out of sight.

"Found what you were looking for Doc," Wash called up, causing Simon to increase his pace down. As the Doctor came off at the bottom of the ladder, Wash reached into the pile and came out with a container.

"Here you go," Wash said as he handed it over.

"Great, thanks," Simon told him. He then left Wash and Kaylee to their business, walking rapidly back toward the hatch to the Lounge Area, reading the label and information on the package as he did so. He went through the hatch, down the stairs by the Infirmary, heading rapidly back toward the Passenger Dorm and his cubicle—

He was of course totally oblivious to the two sets of eyes which were watching him from the narrow gap on top of the Infirmary.

With a sigh of relief that they hadn't been seen, River flopped over onto her back, a huge grin on her face. She was still panting, drenched with sweat from the workout—she wondered if what she was feeling right now was what she had heard described as 'runners high'. She looked to the woman on her left who had brought her into this moment—

River—blinked—for it was as if—now that the woman's Kata was over—River realized—she now saw with her own eyes—before she had been so drawn into the woman's Kata that she hadn't seen—that she hadn't realized that the woman was—

The woman heard what sounded like a moan of pain and she felt the sharp movement of the girl next to her—suddenly shifting away from her. The woman looked at the girl, seeing that the girl had curled up into a fetal position giving the woman her back. The woman's eyes narrowed. Something told her that . . . something wasn't right.

But then again, the woman was a little mystified at the moment anyway. The Kata had probably lasted an hour. At the last the woman had really kicked up the pace to see if the girl could keep up as well as having a need to see just how hard she could push her own body after everything that had happened to it.

The girl had kept up with no problem but now the two of them were ringing wet with sweat, flushed and panting. The woman wondered why—when they had heard the steps coming through the hatch from the large cargo area, why she hadn't turned to run for her cubicle considering her state of undress, why had she followed the girls huge smile and beckoning hand to spring up on top of the Infirmary, to hide and yet be so close without the one passing below them, the girls brother—the Doctor, knowing they were there. The delight the woman had felt in the girl by this very simple act—it was as if they were children playing hide-and-seek with an outsider who knew nothing of the presence of the game. It was that delight and the brightness in the girl's eyes that had caused the woman to follow her but now the girl was withdrawn, closed, and barricaded.

The woman knew that with the end of the Kata and the restoration of time and reality that she was going to be stiff and sore, but right now—things felt—the ghosts of memory seemed to be a little clearer to her. There were some things she felt that she might know at least about her body while so much else was still a void.

But one thing she had come to realize. She now knew that she could recognize certain aspects of people. Clarity had come to her in as far she could evaluate and appreciate things she sensed about others. Something told her—that at one time in her life, she had closed this ability off—and that had cost her. Something told her that it was something that she was now trying to avoid—

The girl—

The woman slowly, silently moved herself over and up until she was up on one hand and her knees. From here, she could clearly see the girl right next to her. The woman leaned over, looked at the girl, being careful not to bump her head on the low ceiling over them—

_The way she's laying_ the woman thought, _her position, posture even while laying on her side . . . it's as if she's a child._ The woman craned her neck back and forth, _she's not shivering, she doesn't appear frightened._ She leaned in a little closer, _she's got her eyes covered—something's bothering her, something she wants to shut out. I don't think she's scared—it's almost as if—_

The woman then looked down at herself—then back up at the girl— _I wonder?_

River only had two hands. So she was only able to cover her eyes. Her ears were clear and open. So she couldn't help but hear the woman next to her speak to her in a soft, gentle tone that came to River despite the rasping hoarseness of the woman's voice. "My apologies little one. The fault is mine. I did not realize that such a thing would upset you."

"They told us!" River told the woman through her fingers, her voice harsh with remembered disapproval. "At the Academy they scolded us! They looked at us with sad, disappointed eyes. Even lying in the sun just because the sun was warm on the skin was frowned upon." The sound of scorn came into River's voice as it took on a tone, mimicking the pronouncements of a harsh adult, "young girls must be ladies. The flesh is unseemly when more than an appropriate amount is exposed. Bathing is a private matter, not for public display. Only slatternly women expose themselves more that proper ladies do."

The woman nodded in understanding, "so the fault is mine for shamelessly exposing myself in this way," she admitted in a frank, honest tone. "I was so caught up in the joy of the Kata that I forgot myself little one. What can I do to make things right in your eyes?"

Slowly, River pulled her hands away from her face. Her senses told her that the woman was right beside her. But now the woman—

River slowly turned her head/shoulders/body around so that she could see. The woman was lying on her stomach, head/cheek down against the top of the Infirmary allowing the woman to look at River but the woman's arms were folded underneath her across her chest, concealing her front, all that long hair was draped down over the woman's back and near side hiding all that exposed skin.

River could see—could know—could feel—could hear on multiple levels—that the woman _was_ sorry—that the woman _cared_ about how River felt and really did want to apologize and make things right, But at the same time—

River dropped her head almost in shame. She could still feel the flush of her embarrassment on her cheeks. Even so—

"No . . ." she managed to say to the woman, "the fault is mine. For I was the one who came into your sphere and injected myself into your movements. I'm sorry . . . I was drawn . . . that dance called to me . . . but still I interfered—"

River held her breath, waiting for the woman's response, feeling the mind next to her—

Both the woman's mind and her face gave River a gentle smile. "Then we are both at fault little one. Let us forget that fault in the glow of understanding that we shared in the Kata."

River—was for a moment—could the woman really mean—in her delight River 'leaped' at the woman's words. "Where did you learn—how long have you been able—?"

The woman's smile turned a little sad. "I do not know. But I do know that what we have just shared has been a part of me that my mind might have forgotten but my body still remembers." There was a moment before the woman asked, "if I may be so bold to ask . . . you seem . . . to know things. Would it be possible . . . I know that this is very sudden for we have just met each other . . . if you have the abilities that I think you do . . . could you maybe try to help me try to understand what has happened in my mind . . . so that I might bring my mind and my body back together?"

River's eyes went wide. "Could I?"

The woman nodded.

River—then it was her turn to hesitate a moment. But inside her—she had to ask—

"You are kind . . . but you are also hard. You are hardest on yourself. I know anger and hurt . . . but mine in many ways is pale next to yours. If you . . ." River felt—strange talking to a woman so much older, so much more experienced than her in this way. But—

The woman had asked for her help.

"The emptiness inside you," River said in a very soft voice, "I can tell that it is not your fault. Or at least—" River shook her head, trying to clarify her feelings and impressions. "Something happened to your body to do this to you. Your mind is there, it's just behind a wall. I can't see it . . . but I can hear some of it. And right now . . . most of what I hear is your anger . . . at yourself."

After a moment, the woman nodded thoughtfully. "Something tells me that I have spent a great deal of my life dealing with anger concerning aspects of my own life. Something else tells me that only in the last part of my life have I escaped that to find what so many of us seek, welcome among friends."

"I—I could be your friend."

The woman's eyes narrowed slightly. They burned into River with a sudden intensity that startled the girl. It was almost as if she was looking into the face of a predator.

"I might not be a good friend," the woman warned. "Despite my asking for your help, I sense and have heard certain things . . . that many of those on board are worried about who and what I am. The reaction, the looks, and the attitudes—what if they are right? What if I am a danger to you? At the moment I have to confess that while I do not believe I am, the fact remains that I honestly do not know."

"You're not!" River told her flatly. "I can tell."

After a long moment, that intense look withdrew back into the woman's eyes. She then told the girl in a soft tone, "but as I said—it seems that I am lost. What am I to do to find myself?" The woman seemed to hesitate a moment before she said, "Surely I have to journey somewhere to do that and that journey may be physical, taking me away from here. It would be unfair of me to promise you such friendship and then deny what it is that you seek by leaving."

An almost desperate look came to River's face. "I understand that but I—I wish to learn more—what we just did—what I see deep within you . . . it calls to me even through the void of that you have misplaced. It would continue to call to me even if you left!" River's eyes then went wide and a new flush of embarrassment came over her face, one finger came up to be clenched between her teeth. How presumptuous she was being. What right did she have to impose on this woman—?

River glanced at the woman, waiting for the rebuke—but there was no rebuke in the woman, she was wearing that sad smile again. This was matched by the smile River saw in the woman's mind.

"I see a need that I cannot, in good conscious, deny little one," the woman told her softly. "I don't know how long I will be here, but whatever time I do spend, I would be willing to share with you what I can."

River felt the emotion choke in her throat. For she could tell that somehow, what was happening meant as much to the woman as it did to her.

River had managed to make a stranger—no—no longer a stranger—a friend—happy.

River suddenly raised her arms within the narrow room allowed her under the low overhead, making a face and saying, "ugh! We stink." She skittered up to her knees keeping her head down. "I'll get your robe, we need a shower and Simon might come back out."

The woman again smiled. "I'll wait here little one."

River, like an agile monkey, moved off for the woman's cubicle, taking the 'high road' through the overhead girders rather than just dropping to the floor of the Lounge area. The woman watched her go, trying not to think for she didn't want the girl to hear her thoughts—she didn't want the girl upset—

Time—

How much time—

The woman knew that she was lost—as far as she knew despite the hope that was found in the Kata, that who and what she had been was possibly lost beyond the far horizon . . . never to completely return.

But—

Something else within the woman—something that the discipline of the Kata had brought to her—a revelation from that 'hope' that was always found in the Kata—a realization that unlike so many she was currently having . . . was startling clear.

Someone would be looking for her—and that . . . someone . . . would never stop looking until they located her—or her grave.

The woman found—incredible longing in that thought—overwhelming desire to be reunited with that 'someone'.

At the same time—

She knew that same thought filled her with tremulous fear—for she 'knew' that it was her fault—she had fled—she had 'run away' from that someone—it was her pain and guilt that was part of that anger that the girl felt inside of her.

Pain and guilt that she would have to face when they—when he and those who would be coming for her—arrived.

Time.

The woman feared that it would be a long time for them—for him—to come and yet—

For the girl who had just become her 'friend'—would it be enough time?

* * *

Simon came out of his room having finished going through the full instructions and advisements of the chemical that Wash had been able to secure for him. His hope that when mixed together with several other compounds he was slowly acquiring, that he could eventually design a dietary supplement that could be added to his sisters food, taking the place of the shots—

The Doctor's head jerked up; startled by the fact that someone was sitting on the floor in front of him—

It was the woman. She was sitting cross-legged in the deck directly in front of the Passenger Head's door. She was wearing Inara's robe of course but what was she—was she mediating?

Simon felt both annoyance and resignation . . . along with a little relief. If the woman had in fact just risen, the drug that he had decided to put into Inara's tea at the Captain insistence had knocked to woman out for almost just short of fifty hours.

The dosage given should have done the job for ninety or better.

Simon felt a little better about himself for having to do such a despicable act. He was grateful for the woman appeared to be—unharmed by the narcotic—but why she had such resistance to so many things for which there should be _no_ resistance.

As he watched, the woman's eyes came open—looking straight at him.

Simon could swear that the woman's eyes were telling him that she knew what he had done and that _she did not approve_.

"Um—" Simon stuttered, unable to get his mouth around any sounds that would sound halfway intelligent. He gave the woman a bob of his head before turning and starting up the after ladder instead of where he had intended to go which had been the Infirmary to get a reference book.

He would come back and get it later.

* * *

The woman watched the Doctor climb away from her. Something inside her wanted to give out a grim chuckle at the look on the Doctors face—

_That one needs some seasoning _she thought. _Too easy to read and far, far too easy to intimidate. I imagine that might change if his sister is threatened or otherwise involved but that also could be dangerous—he might rush in instead of thinking clearly._

The Doctor's 'sister'.

'River' (_what a delightful name_ the woman had thought) was currently behind the woman within the shower facility getting 'unstunk'. Because of the extreme personal modesty that the girl displayed, apparently through no fault of her own, the woman was allowing River first use of the shower, 'guarding' the door at the girls request to prevent any intrusion from whoever remained aboard.

Leaving the woman time to 'think' about River and the many and varied impressions the young girl had left within her mind.

The girl had . . . 'perception' . . . that at least was the word that had come to the woman's mind. Something told her that there were other words that applied, 'special' and 'touched' to name two. But the woman's feeling was that the word 'perception' was what was used—wherever it was that the woman came from. The girl 'perceived' things that others could not. The woman 'knew' that such perception could apply to 'time' (seeing into the past/future), 'space' (seeing a real-time event far away from where the person physically was), as well as others abilities such as telepathy and telekinesis. Also the girls own 'perceptions' about the reality about her could be subject to interpretations outside of what could be considered 'the norm'. Visions which might or might not exist, alterations of the 'reality' the girl found herself in in strange ways which might not be fathomable to those physically with the girl.

The woman had come to realize, that while she 'knew' that she had no psychic talent whatsoever, she knew she had spent considerable time with someone—or a group of someone's who did. This had allowed her to overcome any prejudices 'normal's' might have against those who perceived . . . for the woman's impression was that whomever her 'friends' who had the talent were, they were shunned and discriminated against back wherever it was that the woman was from. This set of circumstances allowed the woman to have the 'insight' (she believed that was the word), to have her own deep-seated feelings about someone like River without having any abilities herself. When coupled with her own highly trained powers of observation and inference, it allowed her to at least see, understand and appreciate much of what was going on behind River's eyes.

She knew that she _had_ to understand—that she had to help anyway she could despite her concern about having the time to do so. For there had been another flash—another memory—and again, it had to be very important to her for it too had been 'startling clear'.

His name was David; he had been brilliant and gifted in areas of engineering and electronics, an ability with diagnosing quirky, malfunctioning equipment that seemed to be almost magical.

He'd been a slave—subdued, beaten and deprived into a retreated, frightened, antisocial shell when she had rescued him. She seemed to remember months or years of frustration after frustration attempting to work with him to get him to come out of his shell—

All for naught. The cold, sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach told the woman unequivocally that David was dead. She couldn't remember how or why—other than the fact that he had been murdered—and that she had personally 'tried-convicted-and executed' his murderer.

Then—there was this new girl—River. After all the flashes and the cryptic sayings and focused looks from the girls eyes—

The woman had perceived that there was a real need within River—a need driven by a single fact. The fact was that within River—was a raw, untamed monster with a terrible potential to cause harm and destruction.

How did the woman know this?

The woman had a very real impression—that aside for the fact that she knew her entire life was built around the military and warfare—was that some kind of monster of harm and destruction also dwelled within her.

The woman guessed that it took one to know one.

The difference between the two however; that was the key. For the woman knew instinctively that the monster inside of her was within that net of tight control and discipline that existed in her being. And it was that control and discipline that River sought.

There was no doubt within the woman's mind that River needed what was within her—even if the woman was unsure just how much she could help considering River's—other issues. But—

She only hoped that unlike with David, she would have a chance to make a difference with River.

She hoped that she was allowed the time to make the difference.


	10. Wondering

Chapter Ten – Wondering

* * *

Simon . . . kind of . . . poked his head around the corner of the Infirmary—

It appeared as if the coast was clear.

He felt both stupid and embarrassed by the fact that he wanted to 'tip-toe' down the stairs from the Cargo Bay. Using what only could be called 'The Force of Will', he made himself stand up straight, walk down those stairs and across the small distance within the Lounge to reach the open Infirmary doors—keeping his eyes front the entire time just in case a certain mysterious woman suddenly came around the corner with accusing eyes.

But it did seem that the coast was clear for he found the Lounge/Passenger Dorm area deserted and very quiet. He glanced back toward the Dorm, seeing the door to the woman's cubicle was drawn shut—hoping that the narcotic had relapsed and she had gone back to bed. If that was the case, then he might be able to avoid another uncomfortable encounter for a while.

He felt his insides relax and blew out a calming breath. It was going to be alright.

So he went about his business. He accessed the relevant medical data bases through The Cortex to get his questions answered, happy that he was able to find most of what he was looking for in places that didn't require him to have to log in and identify himself. He pulled out the reference book he had originally intended to get, cross-referencing what he had found in The Cortex with it, quickly taking almost a whole page of notes, the feeling growing within him as he did so that what he was working to accomplish had the potential to be very good for his sister in helping her maintain a steady level of cognizance at all times.

Simon finished with the book and databases, his mind already working on many of the potential problems and possible side issues, rescanning his notes as he came back out of the Infirmary, headed toward his cubicle—

As he did so, something caused his eyes to flick up from his notes—

To find that two very deep brown eyes were watching him—

Stopping him dead in his tracks.

The woman was standing right outside of the Passenger Head door, Inara's robe around her, a towel in her hands with which she was briskly working to dry that very long fall of dark brown hair.

An unfathomable look in those brown eyes.

Simon . . . was unsure how he should react. He'd . . . already run away once . . . which had filled him with discomfort and discontent. It wasn't as if he could 'hide behind' the fact that the Captain was the one who had put him up to it—he was an adult—and a Doctor—and responsible for his own actions. That meant—

So Simon stood his ground—and managed to meet the woman's eyes firmly.

A moment passed, Simon felt as if those eyes were stripping him to the bare bones. He held on, trying not to swallow nervously or lick his lips.

Then—the woman gave him an acknowledging nod.

Simon felt the relief surge through him. He knew that there was neither acceptance nor forgiveness in that nod—what there was was the acknowledgement that he had accepted the responsibility—

There was something else there as well. Simon couldn't put it into words but he had the strong impression that it was . . . not a warning but an . . . advisement about the future—

Simon could live with that. And he told her with a firm nod back to her.

At which time her eyes softened just a touch.

Only then did he allow himself a nervous swallow before he gave the woman a second nod of departure before heading back for his cubicle, holding on tightly to his notes, hoping that his sweaty palms hadn't messed up the writing on the pages.

As his back was now to the woman, he didn't get a chance to see the little smile that came to her lips, or the second little nod of her head—a nod of satisfaction that an expectation had been met.

* * *

—it was now very, very late afternoon; the sun was about to drop down behind the far buildings across the dock area. As was her normal preference, Kaylee had parked her butt in a lawn chair in front of the open cargo ramp, parasol hitched over her shoulder in order to protect the fair skin on her neck. With her legs stretched out away from her, she had the most comfortable venue to watch the world in front of her pass her by.

Kaylee loved to 'people watch', and by far, times like these were the best moments to practice what to her was both a discipline and pleasure. The infinite diversity of what could pass within her field of vision never bored her. That was the pleasure of it. The discipline was how there was no 'discipline', how the entire 'everything' was allowed to flow over her like the water coursing down the riverbed, washing impression after impression through her eyes, ears and mind.

She could and as that very day was an example, she had on occasion spent hours submerged in that flow of impressions, only occasionally sipping from the water bottle she had on the ground next to her, the only interruption being whenever Wash came back on a resupply run. Otherwise, time would go by, dictated only by how she might have to occasionally shift her chair about to accommodate the movement of the sun. As it was, in the long lazy afternoon she had had to shift several times and from the feeling of the sinking sun on her neck, now too low to be blocked by the parasol, she would shortly lose the light altogether.

Then a shadow blocked her body from the fading sun.

Kaylee, completely startled, looked back over her shoulder; the ground was fused gravel, she should have clearly heard anyone's approach.

It was the woman.

She was wearing the coveralls that had been left for her. Considering how tight and short Inara's robe had been on her, there had been a search for something more appropriate. What they had found was an old but serviceable pair of coveralls that had belonged to _Serenity's_ first mechanic Bester. They were a man's 'medium', a little ill fitting, especially where the woman had pulled the belt tight around her waist. She had also rolled the sleeves _way_ up, almost to her shoulders where the resulting bulk of the roll looked a little ridiculous. Her hair had been pulled behind her into a simple ponytail which hung limply behind her, looking as if she had just gotten out of the shower and her hair wasn't quite dry (she obviously had not gotten the hang of the extractor and; _how long did it take for hair that long to dry on its own_ Kaylee mused). Kaylee next glanced down; the woman _was_ wearing the sandals that had been left for her. That caused Kaylee to look around at the ground under the woman's feet. _I was right!_ the Engineer said to herself, _fused gravel—how can she move that quietly? That's . . . spooky._

When she had looked back up, Kaylee had hoped that she could find some kind of answer in the woman's face, or maybe a sign that some of her memory might have come back or at least a smile of greeting.

But no, the woman was just standing beside her. It looked as if she was scanning the entire area before them. But Kaylee could tell there was no happiness in her face. The look that Kaylee could see in the woman's eyes was a combination of questioning, frustration, denial, and loss. There was no recognition visible that the woman was seeing anything 'familiar' to her.

Kaylee could also see something else in those dark, troubled eyes. Something in that gaze was familiar to Kaylee but at the same time it was something that she couldn't quite place well enough to recognize it. She had seen the same look on the woman's face when she had followed Zoe and Inara into the Infirmary for her first meeting with the woman and again when the woman first walked into the Dining Area for her one meal. It was just that Kaylee knew that look from somewhere but she couldn't place it.

"Are you okay?" Kaylee asked,

The woman's eyes didn't waver from the scene in front of her and again the recognition of wanting to identify that 'look' pulled at Kaylee's awareness. But her question got what sounded like a 'snort' out of the woman. Then to Kaylee's complete surprise, the woman told her, "define 'okay'." Kaylee also realized that the woman's voice was still sounding more than a little soft and wispy as well as very 'gravelly' but not to the extent that it had been.

Kaylee accepted the reply as a 'statement' that the woman was still unsure of just how she felt. Kaylee was therefore very surprised when the woman continued to speak. "Things . . . hurt . . . and not just the muscles and joints from too much bed time. There's an . . . ache that . . . comes and goes. I can feel right down into the center of my bones but the worse of it is up here." She reached up to rub the back of her head under her hair.

Kaylee as she looked up was trying to keep the wonder out of her face. As far as she knew, this was the first time the woman had offered spontaneous conversation to anyone outside of her statement to Mal at the dinner table. After Jayne's abrupt departure from the Dining Area, there had been little talk and what conversation had crossed the table had not included the woman. How could you easily converse with someone who could hardly talk and had no memory?

But now that something was started, Kaylee's mind whirled trying to come up with ways to keep it going.

Without stepping on any subjects that were probably better left unsaid.

"Did you get any sleep?" The Engineer thought about what she had just said and with a sheepish smile added, "Duh, that's a dumb question."

"I did," was the reply as if the woman was oblivious to Kaylee's 'dumb question'. "I'm just not aware how long I was out." The woman finally looked at Kaylee, questions in her eyes. "I know we were in space when I lay down . . . and it felt as if I got . . . I don't know . . . a full night . . . but in the meantime I find we've landed."

Kaylee gave her a sympathetic wince. "If you just got up you were down for almost fifty hours." That got Kaylee another snort. The woman looked back up and around (causing the feeling repeat in Kaylee that she _knew_ that look).

"Considering that I have still have no memory of _anything_," the woman stated in a tired way, "I'm not going to even bother you by asking just where we are."

Sadness stole through Kaylee. She could tell, despite the woman's composed exterior that she was unhappy with the fact that she was still completely in the dark as far as her memory.

At that point in the young woman's thoughts, the older woman standing next to her turned around to look over her shoulder—

A turn that slowly continued, the head continuing into a backwards motion as the woman was forced to look up, up, upwards by the bulk of the ship looming over the two of them.

"What in blue bloody hell is _that_?"

Two things instantly struck Kaylee. The first was that the gravelly sound of the woman's voice momentarily cleared revealing that she had some kind of distinctive accent. The second was that she was staring up at the ship as if it really was a giant insect about to pounce on them.

"That's . . ." Kaylee replied hesitantly, "our ship."

From her extremely low angle, Kaylee really couldn't tell but she got the impression that one of the woman's eyebrows almost rose over the top of her head. The woman's body slowly turned around to align with her head with her body after which she stood there, giving Kaylee another impression that the woman was closely examining every little detail of _Serenity_.

"This is just bloody curious," the woman finally muttered, the accent once again strong.

"What's the matter?" Kaylee asked. She was on her feet now, feeling like a midget against the woman's height along with a little annoyance. Zoe was bad enough in making her feel short. Now another one—

The woman was standing staring at the ship. Her right arm was across her stomach, palm up to hold the elbow of her left arm. Her left forearm was across her chest at an angle, it appeared as if she was gently rubbing the back of her left hand against her right cheek. The woman had also not heard Kaylee's question for after another long moment of silence, she simply said, "bizarre."

"What is it?" Kaylee asked again.

The woman's head turned to give her a sidelong look. Kaylee could see worry anew in those eyes. "I don't recognize this ship at all."

Kaylee looked at the woman for a long moment, waiting for the explanation to go on. When none was forthcoming, she made a 'so what' gesture with her hands.

The woman's eyes narrowed a little giving Kaylee a moment's start that she might have offended in some way. But the unspoken question was answered in a low, level voice. "It would be hard for someone to understand maybe, but while I don't remember anything about anything, at the same time things are familiar. A table is a table, I know how to open, use, flush, and close the head, I recognize a light switch, I could lace up those boots you're wearing if I had too."

Kaylee nodded in new understanding. "So you recognize and are aware of (her hands waved about trying to come up with a descriptor) . . . things."

The woman nodded. "I find that I am indeed, familiar with everyday things and objects. I didn't completely lose my memory in regards to things like that and what I did loose in those arenas has rapidly come back. I can't read that ideogramic script that's on so much of your gear but I recognize it as a language that I know exists."

"You don't understand Chinese?" Kaylee asked in near horror. "How can you read and speak English and not Chinese?" The woman could only give her a shrug in reply.

"That's just one of the questions to be asked young lady," the woman said with a sigh. "Just like this right here," she continued with a gesture toward the ship. "If I know a door and a table, a spoon and fork, a control panel . . . why don't I recognize this . . . thing?"

"She's not a thing," Kaylee replied with sudden heat.

The woman's eyes darted to Kaylee, apparently surprised by her vehemence, then did a double take between the young woman and the ship—

Kaylee stopped breathing when the woman's eyes suddenly went wide and far away—it looked as if she was seeing something that wasn't there—her whole body was rigid—then the eyes closed and the woman started to breathe slow deep breaths—

"Wha—what—?" Kaylee was thoroughly startled and afraid to break into the woman's thoughts.

"Had a flash there," the woman said in a shaky voice. "A real strong one for as little as it told me."

Kaylee's heart leapt into her throat. "You remembered something?"

"I think—I think—" the woman looked as if she was struggling to recognize/clarify/make sense of whatever it had been that she had—

"I think," the woman started a third time, "that it was the obvious affection that you have for your ship . . . and please forgive me, no offense was intended."

"You can call it a broken down piece of _fei-oo_ if it helps you get your memory back," Kaylee exclaimed.

The woman then gave Kaylee a look which instantly wilted the young Engineer, causing her to say in a small voice, "ah—right—no Chinese. Ah—okay, you can call it a broken down piece of junk if it helps you get your memory back _and_ if you don't really mean it."

Kaylee instantly brightened when she realized that her reaction to the woman's reaction caused just what might have been a tiny smile at one corner of the woman's mouth. She came back up to her full height, almost breathless to ask, "what did you remember?"

The woman was brushing the back of her left hand against her right cheek again. There was a definite . . . reverence to the action.

"It . . . was more of an impression than anything else. A . . . black arrowhead."

Kaylee—blinked. She then asked the question with her eyes. The woman could only shrug again.

"I . . . can only guess that it's a memory of some kind of ship being that we were talking about your affection for yours when it happened." The woman looked back up at _Serenity_ with new eyes. "I have to believe that if that was a memory of a ship . . . that I must feel about it in much of the same why that you feel about this one." The woman suddenly looked back down at Kaylee, "I suppose that you don't know what I'm talking about in as far as a ship . . . and my impression was that it was a fairly large one . . . shaped like a black arrowhead?" Kaylee could only shake her head.

"The Marshall's chase ships are kinda arrow shaped but they're real small and they ain't black—least I've never seen a black one."

The woman could only snort again. "I suppose it's only fair then. I don't recognize yours and you haven't a bloody clue as to mine."

"I've never even heard of a prototype shaped like that," Kaylee's voice conveyed that she felt as if she had let the woman down.

And she got a small smile in return.

That made Kaylee's day.

"Right," the woman said, dropping her arms. "Well, if I slept almost fifty hours, that must be the reason why I'm hungry." She then looked at the young woman besides her. "Could you join me? I wouldn't know were anything is and I want to make sure that I don't wander someplace that I shouldn't be."

Kaylee was thrilled that the woman wanted her company but—

"Sorry," and the young woman's voice confirmed her unhappiness. "But I have to stay out here in case someone comes by to ask about us taking on a job. But I can tell you—" she then proceeded to tell the woman where easily made day snacks could be found in the galley.

The woman nodded in thanks and understanding. "Can I bring you anything then?"

Kaylee shook her head. "Thanks, I'm not really hungry yet but," she turned and reached down for her water bottle, "if you could fill this for me I would appreciate it."

That got another small smile. The woman then looked back up at the exterior of the ship, giving a little shake of her head before heading back up the ramp.

Kaylee sat back down into her chair; sudden fantasies filling her mind that she might be the one who would help this strange-yet-striking woman recall her past and get her feet back on the road of her future.

Kaylee wasn't sure just how long she had been lost in the daydreams of those fantasies (other than the fact that the sun went down and it got dark) but she suddenly heard the 'crunch' of multiple feet on fused gravel which in turn made her became aware that a 'group' of well-worn boots had stopped just out beyond her own extended legs.

"You the power weasel on this ride girly?"

Kaylee looked up, her insides instantly going tight.

Before her were three men, obviously Independents like her and her crew—

And they were looking and sounding like they wanted something—and it wasn't a ride.

"If you want anything, you'll have to wait for the Captain to come back." Tried as she might have, Kaylee couldn't completely keep the apprehension out of her voice. Simon and River were probably far back in their cubicles and Wash was gone waiting delivery of their order of consumables. That meant that she was basically alone as of this moment.

And she doubted very much that they would allow her the use of her radio.

But the three Independents before her were eyeing _Serenity_, not her.

Not that that made her feel that much better.

The tall one pointed at the wing root of the port engine saying, 'it's got the same set of ducting."

The short one in the middle then growled at Kaylee although his eyes were on the ducting his cohort had just pointed out. "You got the GS-350 compensators for that model don't you? That would mean that you have the CSD control boards for a Mark 7 driver."

Kaylee kept her features blank, not trying to give away anything.

"We're way late," growled the third one who had the look of a hardcore fighter like Jayne. "Let's just take the stuff before the rest of the crew gets back." Without an answer from his cohorts, that one started for the ramp.

"Hey, you can't—!" Kaylee managed as she scrambled to her feet—

Only to be jerked up short, pain lancing through her face. The tall one had reached in with his long arms, grabbing her by the back of her neck, his grip offside allowing him to get a thumb into Kaylee's mastoid below one ear.

"Keep quiet girly and we won't hurt you much," he growled into that ear as he twisted her about and propelled her toward the ramp, "cause trouble and I'll just beat you bloody. Go quietly and we'll be nice an lock you in a cargo box. By the time your crew finds you, we'll have gotten the parts and taken off."

The three of them had closed around Kaylee, hiding the fact that they were forcing her forward; they were already up the ramp into the Cargo Bay. Once they were inside they hustled her toward the main gangway.

"Ask her how many others are on board," the fighter called from the front of the group.

"Look from something to stick her in," the short one ordered. "We don't know how much time we're got—"

"I would say that you don't have any time at all."

All eyes snapped up to the very top of the gangway.

Kaylee didn't know to cry out in warning, cry out for the woman to flee, to save herself or—

Or what—

The woman was slowly advancing down the gangway toward them; Kaylee's now filled water bottle was in one hand. But her face—the look in those eyes—

Only now—in this circumstance—under these conditions did Kaylee see the woman's features—seeing them as if for the first time—seeing them for what there were.

The face of a she-wolf, calm, competent, focused, ready . . . dangerous.

The eyes of a hawk, locked on its prey, seeing everything that needed to be seen to make the kill.

Wolf

Hawk

Both top-of-the-food-chain predators.

The three Independents didn't quite know what to do. Kaylee guessed that the whole thing was being done by them on the fly; the lapse in having some kind of plan had caught them up short.

The hand on Kaylee's neck had loosened a bit. She was able to turn her head and see—

"I think it would be very much in your best interest," that most predatory woman told the Independents in a very matter-of-fact-tone, "that you let the young woman go followed by your rapidly exiting this vessel." The woman was continuing to come down the gangway with slow, deliberate steps. At the middle landing she placed Kaylee's water bottle on the top of a rail. With both hands now free, the woman simply placed her hands down at her sides, managing to look both relaxed—

And ready to kick someone's ass.

Kaylee, now being able to look around somewhat, had seen that the tall one, the one holding her by the neck had drawn a fairly large knife from somewhere which he was holding in his other hand. The other two were in front of Kaylee so she couldn't see their faces, but their body language, their stances—

While the three Independents must have known that the chance existed that they would meet another person on board _Serenity_—

They hadn't expected to meet what might very well be a force of nature.

"We—we need those parts," the short one managed, sounding all the while as if he was licking suddenly dry lips. "We lost the money our Captain gave us to get rebuilds in a card game." He said that with an angry flick of his eyes toward the fighter next to him.

"Taint my fault that the game was crooked—I'd heard from a good source who said he doubled his money there," the fighter said in a near whine. He then looked at the very dangerous woman who was still slowly approaching. "So what," he told her angrily, "we tried to use the money the old tightwad gave us to pad our pockets a bit. But now, if we go back without the parts he told us to get, we might as well not go back at all."

"He'll kick us off," the tall one holding Kaylee growled, "and he'll keep all our personal stuff to make up his loss. I've got stuff stashed—"

"You're time is up gentlemen," the woman's soft and yet cutting tone brought their yammering to an abrupt halt as she stopped at the top of the middle landing stairs. "That means that it _is_ time to leave . . . or deal with the consequences of your actions." She looked each of them in the eye, Kaylee feeling through the very air the shiver that ran through the three Independents.

Kaylee squealed as the hand holding her suddenly started to go around her shoulders.

"Try to use her as a shield," the woman _snapped_ in a voice which had turned to steel, the hoarseness vanishing for just that moment, "and I will _kill_ you. Release her and I will spare your lives."

That brought everything to a halt—except the woman. She came down that last set of gangway steps, coming to stand in an easy, relaxed stance on the deck before them. The tension was such that not even a knife could cut it.

"What's it to be lads?" was all the woman said.

* * *

As the full darkness of night settled in, Mal made his way back through the streets toward the docks. He allowed his face to display a little of his frustration—it helped clear the crowd in front of him.

Part of his frustration was from his inability to get a new job for him and his crew.

The other part was the preoccupation with his other situation which had to be contributing to his lack of concentration toward getting another job for him and his crew.

He so incredibly disliked having another factor in his life that he had little control over. In this case he knew it was his own fault but that didn't make him feel any better. And part of that was that he had expected to find _something_ that at least gave him some clues to work with. The fact that—

"Reynolds . . . hey Reynolds!"

Mal looked over, startled.

It took him a moment—

"What do you want Simmons?"

Simmons was short, wide, and gray bearded. He was also the owner of his own _Firefly_ which was the only reason why Mal knew him, for he was from the loose community of owners of same ship types. Competition for work and competition for the slowly shrinking stock of spares and replacement parts for the _Firefly_ class caused men like Simmons and Mal to hold each other at arms distance—usually with their other hands on their weapons.

Simmons held up both hands in a 'peace' gesture. "Just want you to know that I had nuthin to do with what those idiots did."

Mal stared at the smaller man for a moment trying to fathom just what had—

"I haven't been back to my ship since it touched dirt Simmons," Mal told him with a growing dislike for it didn't take a scientist to figure out what Simmons was talking about. "Just what did that bunch of _hun dan _idiots you employ try?"

It had of course become obvious to Mal that Simmons was trying to disavow something that his crowd of hoodlums had attempted to do to _Serenity_. Mal was instantly thankful that Zoe must have gotten back to the ship fairly quickly after completing her chores. Mal knew that Zoe had to have been present in order to stop whatever Simmons idiots attempted—

At that moment, Mal realized that Zoe was across the square from him in the process of breaking through the crowd to reach him.

_Okay, maybe it was Book or Jayne that broke up the party_ was Mal's only available alternate thought.

"I don't have a clue what they thought they were doing," Simmons was going on. "And at this point, I don't care. I'm pulling out and they can be responsible for their own medical bills. I just don't want you to blame me for their being _gouzazhong__."_

"That's all you hire is _gouzazhong_," Mal snarked back at the sweating man, _at least I can get a little pleasure/satisfaction out of someone else's misery_ was his thought for the moment. Zoe had at last reached the two men, looking from one to the other in an attempt to figure out what was going on.

"And if they did any damage to my ship, I'm going to take it out of your ship Simmons just because you knowingly hire _guitou__."_

Simmons pointed a now angry finger. "I was trying to be up front and considerate with you Reynolds. If you can't return the favor—"

"You're trying to weasel out of responsibility for your crew Simmons," Mal sniped back at him with a superior smile. "Anyone who's really a Captain knows that it doesn't work that way."

"_Chur ni-duh_," was Simmons reply with the appropriate accompanying hand gesture before rapidly turning around and departing with remarkable speed for a man of his size and age.

"Well," Zoe ventured, eyes sliding back and forth between the departing man and her Captain, "that was certainly an interesting conversation to walk into the middle of."

"Comon," was Mal's curt response as he swung back toward the dock, increasing his pace to not-quite-a-trot walk. He briefly filled in his First Mate on what the other _Firefly_ owner had said. He was pleased to note that she seemed as curious/worried as to who had thwarted Simmons people as he was. The fact that he was especially worried about one particular possibility caused him to ask how Zoe's how her search had panned out.

"Nothing," was her reply, her tone showing that she was having her own hard time with the results. "Not one of the pencil pushers I talked too had ever even heard a rumor of someone who looks like her."

"Well," Mal ventured. "There are an awful lot of bodyguards, security types and soldiers for hire out there. It's only been a couple of years since the Alliance started to make the 'professional' ones register. Maybe the people you talked too—"

"Mal," Zoe's tone was exasperated. "She's got to be in her mid thirties. An Amazon with a chest and hair like hers; _somebody_ would have heard of her if for no other reason but her bein the brunt of obscene stories."

It was hard to shrug when one was almost trotting but Mal managed it. "Maybe Jayne will come up with something . . . ."

"She's not a freelance Merc either," Zoe pronounced to Mal's surprise. "I had them run a cross check because so many freelancers move back and forth across the fields, following where the work is. Jayne's contacts are with . . . the scum side of the Merc's, the borderline outlaw ones—hell, let's not be nice and say the straight-up outlaw ones; the ones who haven't registered with the Feds because they've got warrants or handbills out for them or they're too criminal to want to register. I don't think she strikes either one of us as being that type."

Zoe shook her head at her own argument continuing, "built like she is, I would think that someone would have heard of her if she was out there. And if she was a straight up Rim Runner, _we_ would of heard of her on our own out on The Rim." Zoe shook her head in wonder. "That kind of a package _has_ to make talk. And if she's a pro the way we think she is, she didn't just start last month."

"We hadn't heard of Early before he came ridin along," Mal pointed out. "Got's to be more like him out there that we don't know about."

Zoe came back with an immediate response. "Thought of that too. They don't talk 'bout it but if they're going after a bounty posted by the Alliance, Bounty Hunters have to register now just like Merc's. Early was in there . . . listed as 'missing'." She glanced at Mal as he gave her an amused look. "Of course," she went on, "hunters working for the corporations or wildcats working on their own for anyone who wants to put money on someone's head aren't registered but a lot of them are still known one way or another."

Mal gave Zoe another look to which Zoe could only shrug. "Anyway," she went on, "I asked some pointed questions about it, I was told by those who should know that bounty hunters, whither they're registered or wildcat, they're known to each other, fighting over work just like we have to hustle to hunt for jobs against people like Simmons. But outside of their group, they maintain a real low profile to the rest of the Verse so they won't spook prey away. From what the people I talked to said, it seems as if most of them are mental just like Early was. And we both think that she's not that type."

Mal took this in for a moment before saying, "so you think that maybe she _is_ Fed enforcement that maybe . . . I don't know . . . went rogue?"

Zoe shook her head, her distress at the mystery as obvious as what he was feeling. "I don't know. She doesn't strike me as an enforcement type. She's not . . . slimy enough." She shook her head again. "She doesn't strike me as slimy at all which means to me at least that she's not a Fed _or_ someone with the companies." She sighed heavily. "I just don't know. Maybe we're totally off base here. She could be some executive's doxy for all we know."

Mal gave out a loud snort. "I don't think so and neither do you. We both had the same reaction to her. Competent—military—and a whole lot of trouble if she put her mind to it. Add in what the Doc said is in her—care to make a bet on what the price tag was for all that stuff inside of her. I think that's half the reason Jayne's so set against her is that he sees it and that's somethin in itself."

Zoe snorted. "You sure Jayne wasn't just lookin at her chest?"

Mal managed an obscene sound.

"I know," Zoe managed with a wave of her hand. "As much as I joke about 'hurting' Jayne if he gets out of line, he also knows that I'd just shoot his ass if somethin real came up and push came to shove. But a female who might actually be able to kick his butt without outright killing him does not exist in his mental process . . . or what passes for one." She gave a sideways glance at her Captain. "Do you think that we might have a few more clues to the mystery waiting for us at the ship?"

"That's what I'm 'fraid of," was his under-the-breath reply.


	11. Enigma

Chapter Eleven – Enigma

* * *

Everybody with the exception of Jayne and their mystery woman was waiting for _Serenity's_ Captain and First Mate in the Cargo Bay. Book was quietly, competently mopping up what appeared to be blood smeared all over the deck in front of the main gangway. River was standing nervously to the side biting at that one finger in her characteristic way. Kaylee was sitting on a cargo box with—Mal was completely surprised to see Inara at her side, one arm around the younger woman's shoulders. Wash was sitting on the mule which was in the middle of the bay, neither it nor the attached trailer unloaded, Simon stood fairly close to Kaylee's side looking uncomfortable in too many ways.

"How are you?" was Mal's first question to Kaylee who gave him a nervous nod telling him that she was okay.

"Where is she?" was his second.

"She's up in the Dining Area," Book replied.

Mal debated for a moment wondering if he really wanted to ask the third question but of course he didn't have any choice. "What happened?"

Kaylee told the tale, trying to remember all the detail she could. That detail stopped when—

". . . the tall one with the knife pushed me to the side . . . into the crate there (she indicated which one with a wave of her hand) . . . and all of them sort of lunged at her together. After that . . ." Kaylee looked at Mal as if she was afraid that he wouldn't believe her. "I—I've never seen anythin happen so fast. I was down on the floor and by the time I rolled over so that I could see what was happenin . . . and the three of them were all in between her and me. . . ." She shook her head, eyes distant as if she was trying to replay the mental tape in her head because she was having trouble recalling it . . . trouble believing it.

"It was over in like two seconds," Kaylee's voice was a combination of disbelief and awe. "I didn't _see_ her do anything 'cause they were all in the way. They all jumped on top of her . . . but then the fighter was down; unconscious, his entire nose and mouth bloody. The tall one with the knife, he was down—his wrist and the forearm that had had the knife was all broken. So was one of his legs—you could _see_ that it was broken—the short one. . . ."

Kaylee's head came back up as if she was looking to them, all of her friends to help _her_ understand. "He was on his knees holding his chest . . . it looked like he couldn't breathe . . . he rolled over onto his hip . . . then I could see his face . . . it looked like he was having a heart attack." Kaylee's head turned to where Book was now standing, the floor once again clean under his feet. "She was just standin in some kind of a crouch . . . her face . . . was calm . . . she wasn't even breathin hard."

Kaylee's head moved slowly as if she _didn't_ believe what it was that she had seen. "She then told them in this calm, cold voice to leave . . . or she would finish the job."

Kaylee swallowed before, "whatever she did to the short one, it started to go away, he started to get his breath back . . . but I think that even if he was about to die, he would have found the strength to get up. The short one helped the tall one to get up and balance on his good leg. While the tall one started to—he actually had to hop out on his good leg at least as far as the ramp where he fell and crawled down the rest of it. The short one picked up the fighter in a fireman's carry and took him out on his back."

Kaylee's eyes came back to Mal. "She came over to me—I _know_ that I must have looked as if I thought she was going to do something to me but . . . she helped me up. . . ."

"I had just arrived back," Book broke in quietly, "when the three . . . gentlemen fell out and down the ramp. I . . . (he managed a grim smile) enquired as to what had happened and received a . . . brief summary of their activities. I sent them across the apron to the tea house there and paid an urchin to fetch their Captain. I then made sure that Kaylee and . . . our most unusual woman were unharmed."

"Unusual woman my ass," bellowed Jayne as he strode into the Bay. "I couldn't find nothin on her so she has to be a fake." He then became a recipient of a multitude of looks from those before him which told him—

"What?"

* * *

Mal had his crew in the Lounge. The hatch to the outside world had been closed sealing off the rest of The Verse from the inside of _Serenity_. Kaylee had had some calming tea from Inara's shuttle.

Mal had a better handle on what had happened now. Book had taken care of things when Simmons's had sent a _very_ unkind reply message to the urchins summons. By then, Simon and River had been able to come forward to help with Kaylee but—

"The woman," Simon was saying with a shrug, "didn't want any help." He glanced down at Kaylee clearly concerned even as he added, "not that it appeared as if she needed any."

"She was more upset than she let on," River added, her eyes getting that 'I can tell something you can't' look. "It was . . . more than a little strange. It was like there was a light on inside of her . . . one that I hadn't seen before. Then . . . after a little while . . . that faded out. That's when she got sad." River looked around, her face clearly confused. "It almost as if she had been in a dream and she woke up not knowing where she was." River's head drooped a little as she finished in a sad voice, "she walked away without saying anything."

Simon now looked very uncomfortable before he said, "I wanted to examine Kaylee," the Mechanic looked away, her face shading. "But she wanted to calm down first. Then Inara got back. . . ."

"My appointment cancelled," Inara explained looking 'peeved' at that. But that went away instantly when she looked at her _mei mei_. She placed other hand on the young woman's near shoulder, "It turned out that it was for the best." Inara then looked at Mal. "No one in the Guild can say if they have seen this woman or not." She gave a shrug of her own before continuing. "Certainly I only have access to my brother and sister Companions that are within this sector, and we in our travels encounter many who are as exotic as our mystery woman would be if she had seen better times. But the Guild has a long memory and one as striking as she would be known . . . or at least would have been commented on . . . especially if she was employed in work . . . similar to the Guilds."

Mal gave Inara a curt nod. "So she's not a whore. Shepherd?"

Inara bristled but Mal ignored it as Book spread his hands in failure. "It's as if she sprang out of the ground. _Nowhere_ did I find anything that I expected to find. The facts that we all keep pursuing, her looks and apparent competence—to which we can now add what appears to be a formidable fighting ability; I'm afraid that the idea that she might indeed be some type of deep undercover intelligence operative must be revisited for that is the only thing _I_ can think of to match all that we know at this time."

"Well," Wash spoke up sounding reluctant to do so, "over at the storehouse I had some words with the crew of a fast-hauler that got in today even though it left Highgate ten days after we pulled out of _Qing Long_. Seems the Alliance has quarantined New Omaha and is going over the planet like a baboon looking for flees. _Qing Long_ hasn't seen this much Fed presence ever."

Mal took this in with a nod that took in the entire top of his body.

Jayne was looking at _Serenity's_ Captain as if he was afraid that Mal was going to say something he _really_ didn't want to here. "Mal, if she took out those _gou pi_ as easily as Kaylee said she did, she's a handful. We _have_ to dump her!"

Mal considered this for a moment before telling them all in a considering tone, "I think it would be in our better interests to ask her to join on as crew."

* * *

The woman was in the circular sitting section of the Dining Area as Mal came down the steps from the forward passageway. Her elbows were on her knees, her chin resting on her two fists. She was staring at the table top but Mal got the impression that she was seeing something only she could see.

His crew followed him in, Zoe and Jayne flaring out behind him in case something got ugly. The rest all kind of spread out along the end of the dinner table where they could best see. Mal hesitated for a moment, then started to carefully walk over toward the woman.

When he was within ten feet of her, her head slowly came up and around to look at him. He stopped as if punched—for the agony in her eyes was almost more than a man could bear. But her features—if there was a battle was going on behind those eyes, almost nothing of it showed on her face—almost. The mask was struggling to stay in place, to not crack, fighting hard to remain cool and controlled.

But those eyes—

Mal, after a long moment opened his mouth—but he didn't know how to start talking, didn't know how to address her—

He was saved when she abruptly got to her feet. She folded her arms under her breasts as she turned to face Mal and the rest of the room. Now all of them could see just how much she was struggling to maintain her composure.

Except for Jayne. Seeing her in the coveralls for the first time, his eyes went wide. Between the tight belt around her waist and her arms 'pushing them puppies up', the size of her chest suddenly struck him right in the groin and all other thoughts and considerations rapidly left the void between his ears. It was such an impression that the idea of the woman 'not being dumped-becoming part of the crew' suddenly found a good deal of favor with him

"My apologies Captain for causing a row on your vessel." She was looking Mal right in the eye as she said this; despite the hoarseness of her voice, Mal could tell that she meant every word. "There must have been a better way of handling the situation. I'm unfamiliar with local conditions and customs—"

"Whoa," Mal stopped her with one hand raised. "Three—knuckleheads (not the word he wanted to use) forcing their way onto my boat, armed, holding my mechanic hostage, I'd of shot 'em outright. I need to thank you for what you did."

The woman stood watching Mal for the longest time—watching him as if she was digesting his words. She asked, in a voice not really sure of itself, "truly? You would have shot them?"

Mal nodded his whole head. "Gorram straight," he said. "We don't take kindly to people forcin themselves on others in these parts, especially if they be armed."

The woman considered this for another moment. Then the mask on her face pulled tight again as she asked, "do you intend to shoot me Captain—for I think we all realize that I am probably a greater danger to you than those ruffians were."

Mal's answer caught in his throat. It took him a moment before he could ask, "and you feel that way . . . why?"

"We do not know who or what I am Captain," she said, her voice going a bit stronger, traces of a strange but familiar accent starting to come through. "I was taught somewhere that the greatest danger is always the unknown . . . and as I am an unknown, I am therefore a danger. To you, your ship, your crew. How can you function knowing that you do not know? Every moment I spend on board means that you have to constantly watch me—or restrict my movements so it is unnecessary to watch me. Something else tells me that I would not stand up well to such a restriction."

Her head dropped and her voice was _very_ tight. "And now . . . comes the fact that. . . ." She looked across at Simon, the pain under her mask flaring for only an instant before she banished it through what looked like pure willpower, "Doctor, I know that you have tried very hard to understand what has happened to me and to explain it all to me. But now—"

She closed her eyes and gave a sharp shake of her head, "I believed that I was in fact from a military background. But in addition it appears that I have a propensity for unexplained violence," her eyes came back open to look warily at Mal, "unexplained due to the fact that I can't remember what happened."

Mal—'blinked'. "What . . . ?" was all he managed.

The woman looked him levelly in the eye; there was pain and strain in her voice. "I . . . 'blanked' . . . if that is a proper word. I remember coming out onto the upper gallery with—" she stopped, looking at Kaylee. "I was bringing your Engineer's water bottle back to her. I saw the three men drag her in." She made a helpless gesture with one of her hands, "the next thing I remember was standing next to the bottom of the ladder, and the Doctor and his sister were trying to get me to talk to them." She looked at Simon and River, "I apologize for being so rude, for walking away without saying anything to you. But. . . ." she balled up both of her fists, her frustration plain, "if it wasn't for the blood on the deck in front of the ladder, if it wasn't the brief explanation from your Engineer telling the Doctor and his sister what I did . . . if it wasn't for that, I would have no idea of what happened." She then looked right back into Mal's eyes.

"Regardless Captain, it is plain that the worries that have been expressed about me are justified. I cannot doubt that I did what I did even if I have no memory of doing it! Even if what happened was justified, even if it was something that those men could have been 'shot' for, it remains that I may well be truly dangerous. Truly dangerous for not only was I not aware that I had that capacity in me until the moment it happened. . . ."

"You mean," Jayne asked, the statement 'weird' enough to him to make him take his eyes off of her body, think about what she said and interrupt her, "you didn't know that you could fight until after the fight happened?"

She shot Jayne a look before gathering herself, forcing herself, bringing the mask back firmly onto her face. She took a _very_ deep breath before looking back at Mal, repeating in a carefully controlled tone, "I was—I am aware that within me is the capability for violence. I was _not_ aware of the form or nature of what that violence could be. I've had 'flashes', moments, some clear; most obscure; of what I think were. . . instances of fighting— of combat—very possibly on a personal level . . . but nothing with the level of intimate involvement as in the altercation described by your Engineer. As such, I not aware that I had the capacity for _that kind_ of violence inside me." She looked back to Jayne, "so to answer your question—no—I did not know that I had such an ability. . . ." her head dropped, "nor do I, at this moment, have any better of an idea of just what and how much I know or how far the talent and experience go."

Her head came back up around to Mal. "Regardless of all of that Captain, as I have no memory of dealing that violence, that can only make me something that can only mean trouble for you. Not only as an unknown factor with far too many unspecified facets for anyone's peace of mind but in addition, who is to say that there isn't something else waiting inside of me that could have even worse consequences?"

"If I may," Book spoke up from the back, "just the fact that you recognize . . . and fear those kinds of sins within yourself, shows that you _are_ aware of such things. No one who is so insightful to the potential of the power of evil within ourselves could possibly succumb to it."

The Shepherd came around to stand next to Zoe with his hands clasped in front of him in emphasis. "Yes, your memory loss is . . . vexing. It may well be that you suffered some kind of exceptionally traumatic events prior to your arrival here with us in addition to the actual events of your arrival and any unfortunate aftereffects that came from that."

Simon stiffened a little from Book's statement but knew that the Shepherd wasn't placing blame. Book went on without pause. "But the fact remains that nothing you have yet done, including this unfortunate incident, gives any indication that you are a danger. This incident, as described by young Kaylee shows the fact that you gave the ruffians as you call them, more than one opportunity to stop their actions and withdraw. You also did not carry the violence you did dispense beyond that which some people (he threw a sharp glance at both Mal and Jayne) might have dealt out under similar circumstances. I believe that this is conclusive evidence that whatever training and skill you possess must at least be something that we need not fear." He opened his hands to the woman saying soothingly, "You showed both discipline and restraint, a most commendable thing. In addition, as I said, I feel that you clear yourself of any potential evil by recognizing in advance that such evil is possible. And without any doubt, I know the Lord would help you with all His strength to overcome such a trial."

Mal gave the Shepherd an exasperated look back over his shoulder before turning back to the woman. "Look, I think that most of what you're feelin is confusion from you loss of memory. But the Doctor seems to think that you really do have a lot of problems which are still settlin themselves. Losin your memory in a fight might be part of this. Ain't nothing much you can do 'bout it." Mal then looked around again, his eyes taking in all of his crew and the rest of his boats 'family'. He then looked back to the woman, took a deep breath of his own before telling her, "and you're right, we've been more than a bit worried 'bout you turnin into something that we would rather not see. But the fact of the matter is that you saved a fairly large piece of our bacon today which means that we owe you. Those engine parts those . . . idiots were tryin to get are pretty hard to come by. If we'd lost 'em, we'd be stuck here unless we could come up with a King's ransom for spares," he looked at Kaylee who nodded her agreement. He looked back to the woman, "we would like to pay some of that debt by invitin you to join us . . . knowin all the while that yes, we have an understandin that at some point after tomorrow we might have to keep an eye on you if your memory comes back and it's somethin that could cause us all problems but. . . ."

"We know that you're trustworthy," River suddenly said. "We can feel it . . . even if you can't."

The Woman stood there looking—a bit shocked. The emotions that were running behind that hard mask were barely there for the crew to see. But see them they could, a sight of that made them all feel a little better.

Except for Jayne whose eyes were back on her chest—having noticed as well just how long her legs were in the coveralls, the sexy sway of that fall of long hair behind her when she moved. Seeing her look—uncertain—weak—he started to wonder if he could use that weakness to break her down, control her, then he wouldn't feel so threatened by her simple presence.

Meanwhile, the woman had been looking at River, trying to understand—maybe trying to believe—

"None of you know me," disbelief was in her voice. "_I_ don't know me. It takes time to build trust . . . ."

"You scared me," Kaylee said softly. "But you scared me because you were . . . so much in control, so cold in what you were tellin those three. You reminded me . . . of a man I would rather forget. He was cold—and he controlled me—and I was so scared I wet my britches. . . ." she broke off as her friends looked to her—she had never told them _that_ part of what Jubal Early had done to her.

Kaylee looked back to the woman, "but when you were done with those . . . _Liou koe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh bun ur-tze—__"_

The woman blinked—

_ "_Oh," Kaylee said, blushing slightly, "that's right, no Chinese."

That got a raised eyebrow all around. "You remember English but not Chinese?" Mal asked. The woman couldn't react to that.

"Anyway," Kaylee broke back in, "what I'm saying is that when you were done, and you came to me . . . I was scared but . . . somehow . . . even bein scared . . . I didn't feel as if you were gonna hurt me."

Kaylee gave a sidelong look at River as she said, "someone who is a sister to me once did somethin pretty amazin in a fight," Kaylee looked back to the woman and nodded in emphasis, "a gunfight . . . and it scared me so bad that I couldn't even look at her for a week." Kaylee looked back to the River. "That taught me that just because there's things we don't understand 'bout the folks around us, it shouldn't change the way we feel." Kaylee head came back around. "I—even bein scared . . . I felt like I could . . . trust you when you came to me." Kaylee took a breath before saying, "I don't understand you . . ., but I think I trust you."

The woman's eyes—looked a little damp in that cool face. She looked back to Mal, sounding very uncertain, "are you sure about this?"

Mal gave a shrug. "Can't say that neither myself or the others here don't have a few reservations. But," he jerked a thumb back to the rest of his people over his shoulder; "we've taken in some lost sheep on occasion . . . ." he stopped as the woman suddenly got that 'far away' look.

There was a long moment before—the woman had to steady herself against the edge of the nook—but her eyes cleared and," sorry," she said. She took a deep shuddering breath, working to pull the mask back into place even as she added, ". . . but it seems that I to have on occasion taken in a few of those who are lost. In fact. . . ." she broke off a moment before saying almost to herself, "it seems to me that I've used the term 'lost sheep' more than once myself."

Mal kind of shuffled uncomfortably before he said, "well, I guess that's how it stands. You seem to be able to handle yourself pretty well, you'd have a place to stay, a roof over your head and food to eat." Mal shrugged again. "It's not much, but we could use a . . . competent hand . . . until you get your memory back or you decide to move on that is."

The woman looked at Mal—just looked at him—they could almost see the wheels turning in her. Emotions again ran under the mask. The woman then took a deep breath, closed her eyes and stood for just a moment. The emotions slowly left her face, her cool, composed looks coming back to the fore.

"I'll . . . think about it," the woman finally said. "I owe you. . . ." she took a moment to look around at everyone in the Dining Area, "all of you. . . ." she looked back to Mal, ". . . for saving my life more than you owe me for repulsing a single boarding attempt." Mal was thankful to see that the woman did allow gratefulness to shine out of her eyes as she went on. "That much is obvious . . . and something tells me that I always try to pay my debts. But—" and the woman's eyes flashed across the the room, taking in it seemed all those who might be companions for her in the near future—

Mal got the fleeting impression that her eyes had scanned and—evaluated each person in the line of her vision—with an even stronger feeling that she could . . . 'sense' what the others in the Dining Area was thinking. Her eyes finally settled on Jayne—the only one on board that she really hadn't been 'introduced' too—and who gave a startled smile when he realized that she was staring at him. A smile that quickly turned into a leer.

And it was that expression on the Mercenary's face that made Mal want to glare, throw something, do anything to keep the dumb ass from opening his mouth with the statement that they all knew he would—

"Well darlin," he drawled, kind of pulling his shoulders back, readjusting his feet in an almost 'strut', "I've got a real good way of lettin you pay your debt, and I reckon that I could see that you had just as good a time payin your bill as I had acceptin payment."

Mal thought himself to be hardboiled and grim when it came to other members of the human race—but he actually took a step back as a look came into the woman's eyes.

Liquid helium was warmer—

At least half of those in the room, Mal among them, would not have been surprised if the woman had exploded like a bomb, had whirled about, lashed out, maybe physically attacking—

But all she did—was hold Jayne with her eyes.

Allowing Jayne to look into two brown eyes that had turned with amazing suddenness into two bottomless black holes—

But Jayne could see the bottom—and his dead body lying there.

The Merc's eyes went wide, his jaw snapped shut—he took an involuntary step back—

Wash would have liked to have smiled—for the sight of Jayne looking as if he was about to actually throw up his hands in apology, about to back right out of the Dining Area awestruck by what was confronting him—but even Wash couldn't take his eyes off of the woman. He reverently hoped however that he would never be the focus of what seemed to be a nova of raw, naked fury that was about to appear in the Dining Area.

But there was no supernova-like explosion, for while the potential was there—so was an unwavering, iron control. A control so careful, so complete, so—apparent that it made Zoe stop her breathing.

"I'm going to say this once scally . . . and I'm only going to say it . . . once," the woman's tone was low, almost that someone reading something off of a menu. A strange yet familiar accent was suddenly there in strength—but it was the steel in that voice—the whipcord that drove its pacing—those who knew it, Mal, Zoe, Book—and the unfortunate recipient of that tone—along those piercing, skewering red-hot/black as death eyes that went with it—they knew it was the tone of authority—_of command_—that demanded instant obedience even as it 'peeled the paint' off of the walls without the volume being raised.

"If you ever . . . even for a moment . . . experience the slightest attempt at a nippers knock-one-off fantasy that I would even acknowledge that you have a middle leg swinging in the breeze you'd better enjoy it . . . for I will bloody well have your guts for garters. I will rip that tiddly thing off and shove it up the wrong 'un!"

Jayne—who at this moment knew that the woman meant every word that she said (even if he didn't actually understand the words—he knew exactly what she meant) continued to slowly back up heedless of the fact that he was doing so in front of everyone. But it seemed that just about at the moment he would have been forced to actually turn about and retreat—the woman swiveled back to Mal. She had to stop, close those eyes—consciously reach out and grab the flame/fury inside her. Taking a deep breath that seemed to go on forever, the woman slowly banked what was inside her in a display of emotional discipline that rivaled anything Mal had ever seen.

Silence _rang_ in the Dining Area.

After several more very deep breaths, the woman's eyes again opened. In a sudden, startling change, she looked at Mal and said, "my pardon Captain." She took another breath before, "if I may, I will thank you for your offer of joining—" she hesitated as if she had to fight down another spike of emotion before she added, "I appreciate your concern . . . even if (her eyes skewered over toward Jayne) some others might have other thoughts." She looked back to Mal, "I will consider it . . . but—"

She glanced around the room again at everyone who was still holding their breath. Slowly, as she continued to get herself more 'calm', she actually seemed—to be a bit embarrassed by her outburst. She looked back to Mal, bowing her head, "by your leave Captain, I see that I'm causing more than a bit of a scene . . . and I should apologize for that." She looked back up as she said, "with your permission, I will find someplace where I can think." She glanced back over at the form of the Merc before adding, "at the same time . . . I think that you and your lot should consider whether or not, your offer is truly a good one for yourselves and your ship." Without waiting for a response from him, she gave Mal a second nod of respect, then started across the compartment, moving with a steady, measured step. She passed Mal by, swinging wide around to the left of the table, giving Jayne room. Zoe and those behind the table moving to allow her by.

As she passed them, Zoe, Inara, Simon, the rest, they all looked about, from the woman to Jayne to Mal, wondering if it was safe to start breathing again—

Then, as she started up the steps to exit the Dining Area—the woman hesitated—

In fact she completely stopped, one hand out gripping the side of the hatch.

She stayed there with her head lowered.

With the exception of Jayne (who was standing motionless staring down at the deck in front of him), the occupants of _Serenity_ looked at each other in wonder, trying to figure out just what the woman—

Finally, Book moved over toward her.

It wasn't until he got right behind her that he realized—

_She's—shaking. It's like she's reacting to a massive dose of adrenalin . . . which would make sense considering what just happened to her—I wonder if—_

Then, before the Shepherd could have another thought, the woman turned slowly around—

The mask had cracked again, cracked wide—in fact it had broken completely. Guilt—fear—apprehension and a strange look that might be disorientation flared through those breaks.

"I'm—I'm sorry," she managed in a tight, emotional tone, her words almost inaudible given the hoarseness of her voice. She looked around, looking lost and very vulnerable. "Th—that was completely uncalled for. I am your guest after all . . . and you've been kind enough to offer me a place here."

Even though his back was still to her, the woman looked at Jayne, "I'm sorry. All I can plead is . . . that what you said . . . just . . . struck me wrong . . . and it seems (her eyes went 'inward') . . . that it is a very sensitive subject for me." That seemed to be an understatement for the woman dropped her head and managed a shuddering breath before—

"Actually, I guess I should be thanking you—Jayne isn't it—because of what you said . . . I don't remember—I _really_ don't remember . . . but I _know_ . . . that I'm married . . . and that I love my husband very much . . . ."

Then the tears were spilling down her face—and it was all she could do to add, as if she was almost talking to herself, ". . . and I also know . . . as certain as I breathe . . . that . . . I did something . . . I did something _to_ him . . . something that . . . that—"

"Forgive me." Without another look or word, the woman turned and left the Dining Area, immediately turning to the right to go down the ladder to the Cargo Bay.

The ringing silence was back—at least for a moment for Jayne suddenly turned and stormed off out of the same forward hatch. Half of those present almost jumped after the Merc in fear that he was going to follow and attack—

But they were able to see that he stomped directly to his cabin, violently kicking the panel open, just as violently _slamming_ it closed behind him after he dropped out of sight.

"Woooaaawwww," Wash managed to say for them all.

"Captain," Simon stepped forward in order to drive his point home, "as much as I fought to initially bring her on board you can't be serious about letting her stay?"

Mal's eyes were on the hatch where the woman had last been and they didn't move from there. But he allowed his voice to convey his 'shrug'. "I don't know why not."

"If I may Captain," Book stated with as 'even' a tone as he had ever managed, "despite all that I just said, in fairness to all of us here I have to add that I do believe that that has to be one of the most—well . . . let's be honest and say it because the word has already been freely bandied about—_dangerous_ people I believe that I've had the honor to encounter," his eyes flashed from Mal to Zoe, "present company included. I do not doubt the wisdom of your thoughts but I must at least raise the possibility that however much we might presently 'trust' her, we may not be able to react fast enough if her memory does return with consequences against us."

"Well Shepherd," Mal said in an agreeing tone even as he pulled himself fully upright (allowing him to hide his own shakes, brought on by the adrenalin rush when it looked as if Jayne was about to die) "I would tend to agree. That _is_ one dangerous woman . . . and frankly . . . someone that dangerous I would rather have by my side, that bein here where we can keep an eye on her . . . rather than out there . . . where someone could take her to their own ends . . . at which time she could very well be on _their_ side, maybe tricked or forced to their side but on their side nonetheless."

Mal ended with an awed shake of his head, still watching the hatch were the woman had disappeared. "I think havin that woman on the other side would be a downright bad thing."

Book's eyes were locked on Mal as if reading his mind—until at last the Shepherd, turning his head in the direction the woman had last been seen, intoned softly, "Amen."


	12. Offer

Chapter Twelve – Offer

* * *

Her hands had finally stopped shaking—_must be adrenalin—although I don't remember how I know that_ was the qualifying thought.

_You probably shouldn't be here—you should have stayed in your cubicle—being all of a sudden that you don't remember—and you don't have a flippin clue why you don't remember—_

_But here . . . I can see the stars . . . and I need to think . . . and something tells me that when I'm really keyed up . . . I need to see the stars to think . . . and I'm really REALLY keyed and I don't know or understand how or why—what just happened—and why does it keep happening?_

_What do I understand? What is it that I am thinking about all of this? It's been so ruddy fast—so addled—how will I know the right thing?_

_It's obvious—that everyone that I've seen up to this moment—they're not—bad—but—they're—saying that they're 'not good' would be a joke—they're leading a dodgy life. And some of them, the Captain, Zoe, that bloke with the beard—Jayne—even the—Shepherd—there's more than a bit going on with all of them then they let on about._

_Something tells me—there's a row—I have a row with them—or at least—if I was to stay— the way that they might live—and yet their—or at least the Captain—is inviting me—he's worried about it—he really doesn't trust me out of his sight—but it's not personal—he doesn't trust anyone he doesn't know out of his sight._

_How will I know the right thing?_

_Inside of you—you know what's put right. You may not be able to bring it to your mind just yet—but you KNOW it as well as your knowing how to breathe. It was taught to you when you were very small—it was pressed into you when older—it was arggoed into you during your life when you found yourself in bags of wank that you KNEW were wrong. Knowing that that wank was wrong forced you to get away from them, to move on elsewhere—_

_Just like right now—if you know that the way these people live is all to cock—or at least—some of the things they're forced to do to live are all over the shop—you should go elsewhere—_

_But right now, there is no other place._

_So—what do you do?_

_God help me—there really is only one answer—and all I can do is pray that it's the right one—_

_And hope that the Captain turns out to be exactly what I think he is._

* * *

"Oowwwww," That came out a little louder than intended as Inara peeled back the shoulder of Kaylee's overalls revealing the nasty scrape to the young Engineers shoulder caused when she had been thrown to the side by the intruding Independents. Kaylee knew that she didn't have to be 'strong' with Inara—and she had been afraid that Simon might see too clearly her fear and anxiety resulting from the assault. Kaylee most definitely did not want the Doctor to hear her sounding like a baby. Inara had instinctively understood. Just as she had acted on that understanding by interposed herself onto the shivering young girl in the Cargo Bay the moment she had realized what had occurred. It had caused Simon to keep his distance from Kaylee saving the young Engineer from her embarrassment. After the incident in the Dining Area, the Companion had further helped by taking Kaylee to her shuttle to get things sorted out.

Of course there was the fact that the young mechanic was still shivering for the whole ordeal itself—

"Are you cold?" Inara asked gently. The Companion knew that her young friend was more shaken than she cared to admit and she was hoping that such a question would elicit Kaylee to start to talk about it.

"No," was the quiet answer.

Inara smiled despite the fact that her face wanted to frown at the sight of the raw wound close up. But she was in her 'mothering' mode and in control of all her aspects. "Then why are you shivering?" she asked Kaylee knowing that the girl would not avoid a direct question from her.

"Scary," was the even quieter answer. Inara looked up at Kaylee's face with just her eyes. The answer was significant. Kaylee hadn't said 'scared', she had said 'scary'. That could only mean—

"And I finally figured somethin else out," Kaylee went on, the need to talk finally getting started. "She—that woman—she gets this look in her eyes. I knew I'd seen it before but I couldn't place it." Kaylee looked down into the companion's face, Inara nodding at her to go on.

"It's that same look that Zoe and the Shepherd get. The look that their looking out at the crowd and they're seein things that you don't see. That they can read whatever it is that they see and guess what's comin." Kaylee looked back down at the deck in front of her. "Somethin else," she went on. "When she got . . . like I told her . . . all cold and calm like . . . it was just like Mal does when he's about to do somethin hard and mean—ooowwwwwww!"

Inara had started to dab at the scrape with medication. "Sorry," she said, "but it's going to hurt no matter what so we might as well get it over with."

Kaylee could only nod her head, screwing her face up from the pain.

"Are you truly afraid of her?" the Companion had to ask—for she knew that she herself would have to deal with the woman should she chose to stay onboard and she needed to know how the others who meant something to her felt. "You told her in the Dining Area that she scared you but that you trusted her."

"Yeah," was the reply. "But no more so than I am of Mal or Zoe when they go cold . . . or Jayne when he gets crazy . . . or River when she. . . ." Kaylee just let it train off.

_This is another reason why your staying isn't it Inara_ the Companion thought to herself as she started to dress the wound._ Kaylee, Wash, even Simon, they need someone who's stable around to cling to when the soldiers and the mercenaries and the psychic madgirls get crazy. Now—if we're adding a woman who could be anything from an industrial spy to a crazed assassin to the mix—that stability will be needed more than ever. You can't leave now even if you wanted to._

"Inara?" The Companion came out of her reverie to look at the young woman next to her.

"I meant what I said 'bout trustin her," Kaylee admitted. "But . . . what if I'm wrong?"

The Companion took Kaylee into an embrace, saying softly to her, "I don't think you are _mei mei_."

Kaylee snorted as she laid her head into the Companions shoulder, "no Chinese."

* * *

Mal walked into the blacked out bridge. He had briefly stuck his head down into Jayne's cabin only to be told the get the _ta ma de_ out. By the tone of the Merc's voice, he was already well into whatever bottles he had stashed in his bunk which as far as Mal was concerned, was probably a good thing.

It meant that at least as far as that part of it all, he could worry about what was going to happen later—

Because at the moment, he was too worried about what was about to happen right now. The woman's silhouette was sitting on the front edge of the left side control console facing the night outside of the front windows. Mal thought he was moving quietly, but as soon as he cleared the hatch her voice came out of the darkness.

"Again my pardon Captain. I know this place is probably restricted to me . . . but I needed to see stars."

Mal came to stand next to Wash's chair. Wondering why his mouth was so dry he said, "we have to be movin on—I know that you haven't had much time to think . . . but I'm 'fraid I need to know your answer."

The woman's form was like a statue. Her dark hair running down her back didn't even reflect the dim light from the few telltales lit on the panel behind her. The effect was—a little menacing—forcing Mal to once again wonder why he wasn't doing the smart thing which would be leaving her to fend for herself.

Where she could be picked up by the Fed's and pumped for information—

Or was it—that there was just something about her—

"Before we begin Captain," the tightness in the woman's voice brought Mal's wariness fully on line. "There is something that I need to ask—and something else I need to say."

Mal waited for a moment before, "go ahead."

There was a long pause before she said in a very soft voice, "I'm afraid that I . . . had another moment Captain. There . . . in your . . . Dining Area. The—your male crewman . . . said something to me. As he did so, things went . . . blank . . . again . . . until I found myself in my cubicle." Mal saw her head come around but in the darkness he couldn't see her eyes. "My impression is . . . that I didn't like whatever it was that—Jayne isn't it?—whatever he said to me . . . and . . . I got angry." She waited a moment before asking Mal, "did I do or say anything that I need to know about?"

_Best keep your tongue tied Malcolm,_ Mal thought to himself. _If we're all very lucky, maybe Jayne will forget about it too._ What he said was, "nothin of any matter."

The woman nodded then looked back out toward the viewports. "That's what I needed to ask Captain. May I now say what I need to say?"

For obvious reason, Mal refrained from telling her to 'shoot'. What he did say was, "go on ahead, say your piece."

There was a moment before the woman asked, "what is the real reason why you want me to become part of your crew Captain?"

Mal . . . was a little annoyed by his sudden dry mouth. That . . . undertone of authority was back in her voice. It was something that he, as a former soldier, instinctively recognized and tried to respond to—

He also recognized that it was from a person who had _had_ authority and knew when and how to use it verses some flack who had been given rank or position with no background or experience to do the job.

"As I said, you'd be a good person to have around."

There was a pause before, "again your pardon Captain but . . . the real reason if you please."

Mal found himself to be . . . slightly horrified that this woman was able to cause such a reaction in him. He hadn't felt like this since his initial drill sergeant had kicked his butt for that mistake he made when—

— so he had better not make the same mistake now.

"I . . . don't know the real reason," he said with unaccustomed honesty. "The biggest part of me wants to throw you off of this boat because . . . you are scary. But somethin else is tellin me not to. And it's that little instinct that I've learned to trust because it's kept me alive when all my other feelin's were drivin me toward somethin that probably would have gotten me killed."

There was a very long moment of silence.

"I appreciate the honesty Captain. Something tells me that I have had . . . less than pleasant experiences with persons of authority who were not honest with me." There was what sounded like a sigh before she went on. "And the fact of the matter is I suppose that I have no choice at the moment but to accept your offer. Considering what I have already seen of . . . your worlds and system, it seems that it would be the height of folly for me to try to strike out on my own."

Her voice coming out of the darkness suddenly became very tired. "I don't know the rules here Captain. And my reactions to what happened this afternoon frankly . . . bothers me."

"How so?" Mal couldn't help but ask.

"To be as honest with you as you are being with me Captain, I have to tell you that . . . I do not know. What I am dealing with I think . . . are imperfect feelings and impressions of what little I've remembered of who and what I was. And none of them match this world that I am currently seeing with my eyes. That's what I mean by not knowing the rules. It's as if . . . I'm not from this world . . . not from this system . . . not from this . . . place."

The silhouette Mal was watching then moved. She was standing and turning to face him.

"Why am I 'scary' Captain? Is it because I seem not to belong here?"

Mal wanted to hesitate. Hell, he wanted to avoid the question all together but—

"That could be a way of sayin it I suppose. Women like you exist in these parts, but their known. You're . . . totally unknown. But at the same time . . . since the war . . . we've been findin that the Alliance and some of the big companies have . . . a lot more goin on about them than anyone would know. We have to wonder if you're somehow . . . maybe associated . . . ." Mal had to let it drop for he was feeling as if he was leading himself out onto the cliff.

"And if I had my memory back," was the grim reply, "you would find that I am associated with your . . . Alliance or companies . . . and from your point of view . . . that would be a bad thing." Her head cocked in the darkness. "That is why both you and others in your crew . . . at various times when you and they were standing outside of your Infirmary, several of you repeatedly said that it would be dangerous if my memory came back."

Mal was—shocked—and was glad for the darkness on the Bridge to hide it. The woman would have to have the hearing of a bat in order for her to—

But she was going on as if she knew nothing of the bomb she had dropped on him. "I would be dangerous because of possible ties to . . . a government . . . and other institutions that survive by less than democratic or ethical means." Her tone became almost neutral. "You think I may be . . . if I use what I recall to be the horror novel label which for some strange reason has come back to me, 'one of _them'_?"

Mal's mouth was now completely dry. He didn't have a clue as to how to react to the woman knowing so much about what they all had said about her—considering everything else about her he didn't intend to try to figure it out. What he did do was rub the back of his neck in his discomfort as he replied to her with, "that may . . . or may not be true ma'am. Considerin how you came into our seein, you just might be somethin that went wrong for the Alliance . . . which could be good for us regular folks. Take our River for instance. She's somehow . . . somethin like what we're talkin about. She was taken—and pretty severely abused by _somebody_. Her brother got her out and we're helpin the both of them stay one jump ahead of the Alliance. And although she's . . . more'n a bit strange . . . she's had her times when she's saved us."

There was a moments silence before, "I have already become . . . somewhat acquainted with River's gifts. And you are willing to take the chance that I might turn out to be someone like her?"

"Well," Mal's discomfort was now filling his entire body, "you've certainly got some of the same moves that she has it seems. Kaylee's been around more'n enough fights, but she says that she's never seen anythin like you."

"And you need a fighter?"

"We always need fighters."

"To do what Captain? There has to be more to it than simply controlling ruffians who want to plunder your ship for parts? Are you looking for someone who could go off and plunder someone else's ships for their parts?"

Mal felt his features harden as did his voice. "We're only tryin to survive. And we need to do whatever we have to to do so."

There was a long beat—then— "I think you should know something Captain," her tone was dead quiet. "Considering what I have seen of your ship, your people, and a little bit of a single world, I suspect that you mean exactly what you say as far as you doing whatever you have to do to survive."

The silhouette turned its back to him again, arms crossing under her breasts. The silhouette stood for a moment looking out on the lights and lanterns, the wood shacks and booths near at hand and the tall more modern buildings in the distance.

"My admittedly very brief impression of this region Captain is that there is a struggle between the haves and the have not's. I have no definitive information, but I have heard and overheard enough to at least assume that there is some kind of ongoing conflict within this region of space, a conflict which is both deep seated and pervasive, a conflict which apparently involves the government of this region and more." She paused for a moment as if making sure she had his attention before adding, "I have feelings that . . . wherever I am from . . . I am involved in a conflict not unlike what may be happening here."

With an abruptness that startled Mal, the silhouette whirled around to face him.

"The difference is Captain . . . is that while you will do 'whatever you have to to survive' . . . my instincts—no—not instinct—it is a rock hard core of certainty within me—that I have a personal and moral responsibility not to do things that are illegal against the Laws of the Land unless those 'Laws' are so extreme, that 'Land' so morally bankrupt that the governing body loses the rights to govern!"

Her hands moved in front of her with her words as she said, "As I said, I only have what I have heard and overheard to go on as far as the . . . repression of your local government . . . I believe that you refer to it as the Alliance. But as of now, what I have heard is insufficient to form an opinion upon which I would feel comfortable to make any important decisions on." Her head lowered as if she was boring her unseen eyes into him. "Part of my problem is the fact that all the information I currently have access too is from a single source, you and all the others on board, a source whose bias may be considered very suspect due to what I perceive as possibly the loss or a setback within the arena of that apparent aforementioned conflict." Her hands moved, going to her hips—a clear position challenging _Serenity's_ Captain. Her tone was equally 'rock hard' when she told him, "under such circumstances and until the situation is significantly clarified to my satisfaction, there are some things to which I cannot and will not do to 'simply survive'! If I stay aboard you vessel Captain, that is something which you will have to understand, acknowledge and abide."

Which immediately raised Mal's hackles. "Now don't go all high and mighty on me. We do what we have to do to live. If you want to take the . . . whatsitcalled . . . moral high ground . . . fine! You can just do it somewhere else because . . . ."

Mal—trailed off—for the recipient of his ire slowly turned away from him again. Mal was momentarily stunned—then his anger flashed anew. He opened his mouth to give the woman a real broadside—

Then he realized—that the woman—she had reached out and put her hands on the protective handrail surrounding the hole that led down into the avionics bay. Her silhouette—the stance she had—the way her head slowly lowered—

Mal came up silently as far as where he would have to twist sideways to pass between the console and the avionics bay ladder rails—and just stood there—he wasn't sure why—he just felt as if that was what the woman needed.

"I'm sorry," she said at last, sounding as if she was trying to recover from a throat that had choked up solid. "I'm not judging you . . . even if it sounded that way. I . . . _know_ that I am not from this place. Therefore . . . I have no right to judge anything that happens here."

She went silent again. But Mal could _feel_ the misery radiating from her like heat. He had the insane impulse to reach out and try to provide comfort.

"It's . . . okay," he said awkwardly.

"No it's not" she whispered, her head dropping all the way to her chest. Mal could barely hear her as she went on. "I think . . . that I have a tendency to have no tact and less consideration when it comes to dealing with people." A snort, half amused, half sorrowful came out of her before, "the phrase 'sticking my foot into my mouth' popped into my head from somewhere. I guess it seems . . . that I'm not a real people person."

"Well," Mal said with equal discomfort, "that would make two of us."

She snorted again. "Right. But I had a flash . . . it seems . . . that at some point before I got here . . . I . . . took the 'moral high ground' on some subject . . . ." and she slowly collapsed down onto herself to where she was ultimately down on her haunches, forehead resting on the handrail in front of her.

Her voice was almost that of a bad little girl. "Whatever it was . . . it cost me something that was more important to me than life itself." A shuddering breath broke through her before, "it was a bloody boob whatever it was . . . and I think that whatever happened . . . it's a part of the reason why I'm here . . . because I wasn't somewhere else . . .somewhere that I should have been and wasn't."

Mal stood awkwardly behind her—

Finally, "Yeah," and Mal's voice was tired but honest, "we do things that we ain't proud of. Most of us have things in our past that we'd like to forget—things that we probably _should_ forget cause they were just . . . wrong. And . . . there's no tellin just what we might have to do in the future. But if you want, you can be no different that Simon and River and Book. Nothin says that you have to partake . . . in the things that you say you can't do."

There was what sounded like a choked sound, maybe part snort, part gwalf, from the huddled figure in front of him. "Than what the chuffing use am I?"

Mal shrugged even if she couldn't see him. "You could be doin just exactly what you did today. Takin care of the ship when the rest of us are off doin whatever. Those _Meh, tah mah duh hwoon dahn_ . . . ." Mal's voice trailed off for a moment when he realized—"those knuckleheads from Simmons aren't the first to come around when only Kaylee was aboard. We could use someone with skills to make sure our door out is always open."

The woman's head came up just for a moment when she almost chuckled, "bloody hell, I'm going to be the getaway driver."

"Look" Mal was now feeling more than a little exasperated, "it's the best I can do."

That seemed to be maybe the end. The woman just stayed on her haunches in front of him, either staring down into the avionics bay or maybe she had her eyes closed or she was daydreaming or _something_ because she didn't move or make another sound for the longest time. Mal finally had to shift his own stance because his legs were getting stiff.

"Fine," she said with a soft voice, moments later she pushed herself up onto her feet. "If you really think it's a good idea—I'll come along." A sigh, "I think that you're getting the short end of the stick."

Mal was surprised by the sudden change and as something else had just occurred to him, "ah—," he started with a clearing of his throat.

"I understand," she answered as if she had once again read his mind. "You are the Captain and I have to take orders from you. I also know that Zoe can tell me to do things as well. I'm . . . more than sure that I've been in this position before so it shouldn't be that strange to me." She then slowly turned to face him. In the faint light from the lamps and lights, Mal could see that tears had streaked her cheeks. "But," and her tone was again rock hard, "the agreement stands. I won't knowingly break any laws, legal or moral unless there are exigent, _compelling_ exigent circumstances that justify such actions. And if I do so unknowingly . . . I will expect that someone will tell me . . . and what they will tell me will be the truth."

Even in the dark, Mal could feel those piercing eyes on him. Leaving him only one thing to say.

"Deal."

The woman waited a moment—then nodded. She then moved toward him to a point where Mal could see her eyes—and those eyes looked him directly in his eyes and asked, "and if by some chance, it does turn out that I am an agent of those whom you fear?"

There wasn't a hint of emotion on Mal's face when he answered without hesitation, "I'll kill you."

She held his eyes for another moment—her mind going back to one of her initial appraisals of Captain Macomb Reynolds— _very much a soldier of 'honor and integrity'. I knew that if he intended to harm me—or turn me over to someone who would harm me—he would have told me to my face what he intended. As he just did._

One other past thought came to her—closing the argument within her mind.

_And hope that the Captain turns out to be exactly what I think he is._

The woman then nodded again, telling the man in front of her, "fair enough Captain."

* * *

It was later. They had taken off, Wash setting a course out of the Central Worlds. Things were quiet, it was getting into ships night. Back in the Passenger Dorms, there was no noise at all.

A low murmur then came to the area. It grew louder in the form of Simon and Kaylee, coming in from the direction of the Cargo Bay. They were walking together with that combination of comfort/discomfort that they both displayed whenever it was just the two of them alone. They came up next to Simon's cubicle, him leaning up against it, Kaylee standing with her hands in front of her as they talked.

"Well," Simon finished tiredly, "we will see how things go." He then nodded toward Kaylee. "Do you want me to check on that scrape tomorrow?"

Kaylee gave the Doctor a slightly embarrassed shrug. "Inara did a good job. Wouldn't want her to think that she didn't." She then did a mental evaluation of what she had just said and she realized— "not that you wouldn't do as good a job or better but," she blurted out—

Simon laughed and held out one hand to stop her before Kaylee could chew any further on the foot in her mouth. "It's okay, I understand." The two of them looked at each other and after a moment, both of them were able to chuckle.

"Excuse me."

The two of them almost jumped out of their skin. Standing at the bottom of the ladder up to the main deck was the woman. They didn't know if she had come down the ladder or if she had followed them in from the Cargo Bay—

Kaylee made kind of an exasperated sound. "That's the second time today that you've done that," she told the woman. Kaylee had a smile on her face when she said it but she was also clearly torn between amazement and frustration over it as well. "How do you do that?"

The woman bowed her head formally. "My apologies. I do not mean to startle."

There was an awkward moment there, then Simon and Kaylee realized that they were blocking the woman from reaching her own cubicle.

"Oh, excuse us," Simon managed. He then looked sheepishly at Kaylee, "I'm going to go ahead and turn in."

Kaylee nodded to him with a kind of false acceptance, "sure, great," another awkward moment before she managed to say, "good night."

Simon nodded reluctantly to her before saying, "good night." He then looked to the woman, giving her a bow of his head, "good night."

The woman bowed her head back to him and mumbled something they couldn't hear.

There was another awkward moment as Simon's and Kaylee's eyes met once again before he turned, opened the slider to his cubicle and entered it, sliding it closed behind him.

Kaylee then took two steps back opening up a space for the woman to pass in order to get to her cubicle. With a polite nod, the woman moved by Kaylee, one hand already reaching up to push the door to her cubicle open—

"I—I didn't get a chance to say thank you."

The woman stopped at Kaylee's voice. She didn't move for the longest moment. Kaylee was holding her breath. Now that she had said something to her, she wasn't sure of what the woman's reaction would be.

Then the woman's head and shoulders turned around—and Kaylee felt those piercing predatory eyes examining her.

But, those eyes softened slightly. And in an equally soft tone, the woman said, "and I think I need to thank you for what you said in the Dining Area." The woman's eyes dropped and she seemed—unsure. "It's hard to put it into words," the woman confessed. "I would venture to guess that no one in humanities existence has ever been as lost and confused as I feel at times." Her eyes then came back up to Kaylee—and there was gratefulness in them. "But your kind words . . . they helped."

Kaylee felt herself flush with embarrassment. She waved her hands around trying to say, "it's no big thing really. You're the one who kept those . . . _ feh feh_—" she caught herself, stopped herself, and after another moment of discomfort translated, "those 'baboon ass cracks' from ripping _Serenity_ off."

An amused look came to the woman's features—she actually 'mouthed' 'baboon's ass cracks' as if tasting the curse for itself. She then tiredly closed her eyes and shook her head in wonder. What sounded suspiciously like a chuckle came from her direction.

The woman's eyes then came open and she looked at a startled Kaylee. "I wonder if it's going to be possible for someone to teach me enough Chinese so that I might at least know when I'm being cursed at?"

Delight came into Kaylee's face. "Well—yeah! We can do that no problem."

It was kind as if—a wall had been broken between the two of them.

Then the woman's face grew serious again. After a moment, she said, "thank you . . . truly." There was a hesitation before, "something tells me . . . that I have spent a good time of my life alone, isolated from others. Something else tells me that in the past years of my life . . . I have been working very hard to change that."

Kaylee was listening with a very serious look on her face. She simply nodded her understanding of the woman's words.

There was another moment's hesitation before the woman said, "I know . . . that I am frightening to you. To you young Kaylee, probably more than any of the others on board. But . . . ." and the hesitation was even more pronounced before the woman was able to say, "I do not wish that you be scared of me."

Kaylee gave her a gentle smile—which also had a bit of self distain in it. "I'm use to bein scared of some people. I'm not . . . brave like Zoe or firm and confident like Inara." The young Engineer shrugged. "That's not to say that I'm _scared_ of Mal when he gets cold or Jayne when he gets crazy, it's just that I . . . ." and her voice trailed off.

The woman simply said with a nod of understanding, "it's like what you said to me in the Dining Area. It's all about trust."

After a moment, Kaylee nodded. "Yeah. That be what it is. I trust them not to hurt me despite the way they are when they get that way."

"And after our short time together, you trust me in that way?"

Kaylee looked the woman right in the eye. "Round these parts, one gets to know pretty quick who they can trust . . . really trust. The fact that you did that . . . what you did. You didn't have too but you did. The fact that it was _me_ that you were so fired up about, that you'd kill them if they . . . ."

Kaylee stopped and gave the woman a look as a thought struck her. The young Engineer wondered _was_ _she bluffing? Would she really have killed them if they had forced her—if they had tried to make me a hostage—_

Kaylee took a deep breath, shaking off the thought with a shiver. "Well, as I said, I may not be brave, but I know who I can trust." She looked at the woman and said, "you frighten me . . . but I'm not scared of you. To me . . . that's a kind of trust, the same kind I have with Mal and Jayne . . . ." again the young woman couldn't finish the phrase.

After a moment, the woman nodded. "I've known that kind of trust," she said in a soft voice. But her eyes had gone elsewhere. They were seeing what she could see in her mind. "It took me years, lifetimes, to find it. And now . . . it's gone. But I remember it." Those piercing eyes then came back to Kaylee. "And I will try to be worthy of yours."

Kaylee smiled. "No problem."

A sudden scream riveted the two women in place. Almost immediately Simon's door slammed aside, the Doctor scrambling out, shirtless with his pants up but belt loose. He hit the next cubicle, almost going through the sliding panel—

Kaylee was nowhere near as fast but she came in behind the Doctor—

The woman was right behind Kaylee—

River was on the floor, half tangled in her blanket, night clothes disheveled, hands holding her head. She was going back and forth between wails/sobs and chants of "hands of blue . . . hands of blue!"

* * *

"Well, it has certainly been an interesting day."

Zoe cast a wary eye at her husband as he finished the last of his nightly chores. They had returned once more to their normal 'you can't see me' type of flying, going way high over the elliptic of The Core to avoid any—adverse entanglements.

"I would not," she told him in a severe tone, "show that kind of . . . enjoyment anywhere near visual or hearing range of Jayne _ever_." She looked out of the front viewports as she added, "he's libel to be really touchy about it for quite some time."

"I can believe that," Wash agreed, just a hint of gloating in his voice.

Zoe looked at him with blatant disapproval for a moment before turning to the other person on the Bridge. "So what now?"

Mal was leaning back in the co-pilot's seat with his hands behind his head staring at the stars out of the ports.

"Just like you said when we first talked about this," he told her. "We're gonna to have to be very careful about how we deal with her and the thing is to do as we always try to do, look and listen and not go jumpin where we can't see to land."

That caused a raised eyebrow on Wash's face. "Asking her to become crew, that's being able to see where we're gonna land?"

Mal nodded. "As I told the Shepherd, I'd rather have her someplace where I knew where she was rather than runnin around out there in the unknown."

He sat up, turning the chair toward the other two, bringing his arms down and placing his forearms on his knees. He was looking at the floor in front of him. "No one, none of us with the exception of Jayne feels anything Fed or Alliance outta her." He then looked up at his First Mate and Pilot. "Just like Simon and River. She's gotta be something that's gotten away from the Purple Belly's. That's gotta be good for us and the rest of The Verse."

Zoe and Wash exchanged glances. Zoe then said to Mal, "if that's true, she's gotta be somethin a lot more important than River ever was considering what the Alliance was throwing after her." She waited a moment before adding, "that's gonna weigh us down a bit."

Mal nodded. "We keep flyin, keep on the move. They ain't found River in all this time . . . ."

"Early found us," Zoe admonished.

"Bounty Hunters," Wash said, "use sources that the Feds wouldn't use or know how to find. They also either conceal or wipe those sources so no one else can have access to it but them."

The First Mate eyed her husband with an extremely skeptical look. "Considering how I was educated in regards to my ignorance of Bounty Hunters today, when did you become an expert on psychotics like Early?"

Wash looked stunned that he wasn't being believed. "There was a reality vid on The Cortex when I was growing up all about bounty hunters . . . ."

Zoe rolled her eyes.

"Man's got a point," Mal spoke up in defense of the Pilot. "And as I see it, the Feds don't really seem to work that hard on somethin after it's got away. They got too many things to keep track of as is. Those pros we scattered on back on New Omaha might be another matter but I think that as long as we keep our eyes open and don't stay too long in one place. . . ."

"And when she starts to get her memory back?" Zoe asked.

"We deal with that as it comes," he told them. "Best keep more than half an eye on her. Talk to River 'bout her keepin . . . whatever she does wide open toward the woman. Make sure that she never goes off alone somewhere . . . ."

"That's all we'd need," Wash agreed, "would be to have some weirded-out hill people kidnap her like they did Simon and River."

That got him another eyeing from his wife. "Well," he defended himself. "It could happen. They took River easy enough. Even if the woman is a fighter, if they used a net or hit her with a sleeping dart or something."

After a moments consideration his wife had to nod her head in agreement.

"Another thing," Mal added. "The way she talks about not belonging here, 'bout bein from 'someplace else', let's make sure that everyone humors her about that."

"That is the one thing that I can't figure out," Zoe said. "If she is a rouge Fed or some experiment that got away from one of the companies like River, why would anyone . . . ." she hesitated, momentarily at a loss of words before she was able, "I mean, why—I don't know—hypnotize someone and make them think that they're from someplace other than here. There is no place else."

Wash was intently staring out of the front viewports. "I don't know babe, other things are always possible." He looked over at her. "Maybe she is from somewhere else out there," he said with a flick of his head to indicate 'out there'. "Lots of info was lost when they abandoned Earth-that-Was. Maybe some small group that didn't want to come here with the rest went off on their own someplace else."

Zoe looked—uncomfortable.

Mal just looked out the viewports, disapproval on his face, "I don't know if I'd like my sky to be _that_ big."


	13. Lady

Chapter Thirteen – Lady

* * *

They moved out of _Bei Hu_ by as direct a course they could. Mal wanted to be as far away from the heavy Alliance influence of The Core as he could, at least until he could make sure his new passenger was squared away with what she needed to know.

They headed out for the Kalisdasa sector, a better than two week trip by the round-about route they were using. There was more than enough planets and moons to give them work for a while and it was 'Rim' enough for Mal to feel comfortable staying there for that spell.

The crew settled down for the trip, relief in the air that the tangled web had been untangled. Everyone settled into their normal 'cruise' routine.

Or as normal as it could be considering their 'newcomer'.

It was early morning boat time. The Lounge/Passenger Dorm was silent except for some faint noises from equipment above/behind in the engineering section.

Just as silently, the door panel on one of the cubicles opened and out stepped the woman, moving with equal silence. She glanced around almost furtively, then with that uncanny movement without any noise, she glided over and across the Lounge Area heading for the hatch to the Cargo Bay. She was wearing Inara's robe, but using pins she had shortened it up to above her knees. She was barefoot and had used multiple bands to tie her knee-length hair into a long thick ponytail.

She eased herself through the hatch into the Cargo Bay, craning her head to check all the ladders and walkways above and around her for any sign of movement or life. She continued this as she slipped over against one wall of the Bay before making a circuit completely around, hugging those walls, eyeing everything in every direction as she made her way to make sure that she was in fact alone within the Bay.

At last satisfied that she was the only one up and about, she moved into the very center of the Bay. Once there, she took a deep breath before moving into a position of standing meditation. Head lowered, arms extended down in front of her with hands held palms down and parallel to the floor fingertips almost touching, feet in what would be called ballet's 'third' position, one foot crossed halfway in front of the other.

She looked to find her Center—

Stretching out her awareness as she did so—

Then she realized—

One eye came open, cocking up to look out in front of her without raising her head—

To see River standing just inside of the hatch to the Lounge, looking more than a little uncomfortable at her intruding but the hunger for learning burning in her eyes.

The woman took another long slow breath. Her eyes closed again.

When she sensed that River (apparently whatever had happened with the nightmare the previous evening was past and forgotten) had come before her and assumed an identical position, the woman waited until both Center's had been found, the girl before her using her gifts to see and understand how it was done from within the woman's mind.

The Kata started slowly.

And so it continued. Over the coming weeks, the presence of a 'student' brought more varied and ambitious Kata's to the forefront of the woman's memory. The end results were never seen by any of the others on board _Serenity_ due to the very early hour. River absorbed the training like a sponge absorbs water.

The woman began to see more and more of what had been done to the young girl and despite her deeply hidden concern over the amount of time she had to work with River, the woman did not recoil from the responsibility of becoming an example to be followed.

The girl found someone who would not judge anything within her other than by performance and accomplishment. She could fail, but as long as any new aspect was at least addressed—even if unsuccessfully realized there was no censure.

Even on the days when the girl would have—an adverse reaction from not being able to accomplish something she really wanted or—

The girl's mood/attention/concentration would shift because of frustration or incomprehension—

Or it was just one of her 'bad' days—

The word 'Center' would become the balm, the focus; maybe the lesson would continue after calm was restored—maybe not. But when ended—it was ended—for the both of them regardless of the fact that the session had just begun.

But no censure—only consideration.

And from her unique access, the girl was able to realized just how 'dangerous' the woman truly was. But the control, the discipline, the restraint, the authority, all those factors that shaped and harnessed that dangerousness, factors that dwarfed what little control the girl had against everything within her that wasn't of her making. The girl came to know that it was these factors that truly attracted her; these were the 'instincts' that she had originally detected in the woman's mind when the woman had been in her coma. They were the things that had drawn and fascinated River—for now that she knew them, now that she recognized them for what they were—they made her hope that if she could copy them, emulate them, bring them within herself, so that she might be able to someday have the same control and discipline over what dwelled within her.

Someday—

* * *

Sometimes—

Mal—was a little perturbed. Why was it written in stone in the annals of The Verse that every time the thought came to him that he couldn't complete it because he couldn't find her—then something else would demand his attention causing him to forget the little thought until some little 'quark' caused the same little thought to pop up days later—

Now—

The Captain of _Serenity_ muttered under his breath as he came down the forward passageway back toward the Dining Area. He had just finished looking throughout the entire boat—unless he wanted to start going through the ducting and service catwalks—

He walked past the companionway leading to the ladder down to the Cargo Bay—

Slamming on the brakes, throwing it into reverse before she could—

River was standing in an almost—contrite way in the corner of the companionway. She was looking at the Captain with those big eyes—

"There you are,' Mal managed, trying to be careful not to spook her with his frustration. By the same token he only went as far as the threshold of the companionway, not wanting to get too much into Rivers 'space' not knowing how her current mood was. "I wanted to talk to you—" he started.

"I won't spy."

That—kind of stopped Mal—on several levels. He could only stand for the moment with his mouth open—

"I told you before," River went on, looking/sounding _very_ serious. "She's good. I can tell that she doesn't mean us any harm and never will. She's lost and confused and she needs our help."

It took Mal a moment to shift mental gears before, "I . . . wouldn't call it . . . spyin. All I'm askin for is that you (he made a helpless motion with his hands) kind of keep your . . . ear . . . on her just in case . . . ."

"She gave you her word," River reminded him—although he wasn't aware that she had been anywhere around to hear that exchange.

Mal after a moment—kind of shrugged his shoulders. "I know she did," he answered, trying to figure out a different tact to take to get the convoluted paths of the girls mind going in the same direction as his but—

"I won't spy . . . but if you are really worried, I'll watch over her," River told him suddenly. Then—with a rapid shift of mood, she looked down at her feet looking 'sad' "She's still in pain," River told Mal in a sorrowful voice. "And I know that misplaced people sometimes have trouble." Her voice got softer, "just like I have sometimes have trouble."

Mal fought to come up with words, once again River was changing moods faster than he could adjust. "I know," he managed. "I just want to—to—to keep everyone safe—" he had to break off as he considered just how 'lame' that must have sounded.

River looked back up at him sharply, "that's an awful simple way to explain why _your_ thoughts are so 'convoluted' on the subject."

Mal couldn't help but react to that—which brought that urchin-like smile to River's face. She even let out a little laugh at him before saying, "don't worry Captain, I'll keep my 'ear' open for you. Just trust _my_ word that everything will be okay."

Mal looked at River for a long moment, then managed a genuine smile and a, "shiny."

* * *

Zoe, like any good First Mate found things for the woman to do. For the woman was adamant about earning her way. And do them she could. A week into the trip, after completing all the 'simple' tasks Zoe could find for her, the First Mate instructed the woman to 'fix up' the Lounge. When Zoe came to check on the work—Zoe's memory went back to the Platoon Sergeant in Boot Camp and his inspections. The Browncoat's hadn't had a fancy military base to train at but Zoe had been career military prior to the Unification schism. She had gone though her training in a normal fashion unlike the mountainous or backwoods camps erected by the Browncoat's on several worlds. Zoe 'inspected' the Lounge using every trick that she could remember from her army days to find just a 'speck' of dirt—she wasn't successful. Even the torn pages in the book stack had been mended.

"What else can I do?"

Zoe raised an eyebrow. "Well, as in any kind of ship, there are always things to do." She cocked an eyebrow at the woman, "so can you tell me what else you _can_ do and maybe from there we can make more use of whatever talents you have."

The woman looked uncomfortable. "I think it would be best," she ventured, "that as you did in this instance, give me an assignment and let us see if I can accomplish it to your satisfaction."

Zoe gave the woman a questioning look. The woman could only shrug. "I know that your question might be a valiant attempt to get some part of my memory back as well as an honest statement. But I don't seem to realize that I have a _talent_ until I set out to do the task given to me."

Zoe nodded. "Just like you not knowing you could fight until it happened?"

The woman nodded reluctantly as if embarrassed about being reminded about the incident.

Without batting an eye Zoe asked, "cleaning out the septic vat? Clearing the feed in the garbage receptacle?"

Without batting an eye back at the First Mate— "something tells me I've done it all before. Distasteful labor is not an issue if it's something that needs to be done."

Zoe looked at her for a moment—

"Can I satisfy my curiosity about something?"

The woman gave her look—and after a moment slowly nodded.

"I know that you don't remember," Zoe said in a level voice, "but if what Kaylee described is accurate . . . and I have no reason to doubt that it is, what you showed against those three _shi bai zhe_ . . . ."

Zoe got a look from the woman, smiled sympathetically as she realized her small error and went on with, "those 'losers', would mean that you've had extensive martial arts training. And I mean extensive, a level of expertise that not even a career military would reach unless they devoted considerable personal study to it or they were involved in . . . some kind of special operations . . . ."

Zoe stopped as she saw the woman go into a 'flash'. This is what the First Mate hoped would happen and that just maybe _something_ concrete would come out of it.

The woman stood for a long moment, eyes half closed, she then said in that far away voice, "I remember learning to strike—I was young—but I was big for my age—"

"How young?" Zoe asked.

"Nine, maybe ten. But I was the size of a twelve year old."

Zoe's eyes narrowed. For someone to be taught so young—

Maybe a program similar to what happened to River? Run by the government or a company? It gave credence to the spy scenario.

"I was on my 'other' home planet," the woman went on. "—the one that I wished was my permanent home—where you could look up at night and see the 'wall of stars'—"

_Wall of stars?_ Zoe wondered. _What could she mean by that? I don't remember the facts but what I do remember from school is that we see quite-a-few less stars in the sky than they did on Earth-that-Was because we're surrounded by all those dust clouds that blot out the rest of the—it was called the Milky Way? But 'Wall of Stars'—nothing I've ever heard about._

_And 'other home planet'?_

The woman came out of her flash. She blinked a couple of times, then looked at Zoe, "also, something tells me . . . maybe I did some time in a special ops unit. The term SAS comes to mind."

That made Zoe blink. Her brain changed gears, shifting back to her own military time before the Unification War—

As an alarm sounded all through her.

She carefully considered her options. When her brain settled, she asked carefully, "do you mean the ASO . . . Alliance Special Operations? If I remember rightly, they have their origin in—I think it was called SAS from Earth-that-Was."

The woman considered this for a moment before shaking her head. "No, ASO means nothing to me. SAS does. But something tells me that I was only there for a little while. I did much more extensive work in an organization that spent its time . . . ." She looked at Zoe with the question in her eyes, "does the term 'The Outlands' mean anything to you?"

Zoe was now completely mystified—but didn't allow it to show.

Not that it mattered; the woman could read her regardless. She was giving the First Mate a wary look.

"This—ASO—concerns you doesn't it," she stated. She seemed to think for a moment before saying, "I take it . . . that might be one of the . . . organizations that you are all concerned about. Something you all would find to be 'very dangerous' to you and the way you live."

Zoe wanted to deny this. But as close as they were at the moment, she was certain that the woman would see through the lie. She allowed her silence to be her answer.

"What are you going to do?" the woman asked.

Zoe came back with equal honesty. "River doesn't feel that you're evil. Kaylee trusts you—Inara feels easy with you. Up to this moment, I've seen or heard nothing that tells me that I have to be wary of you—" but she gave a nod before adding, "I will have to pass this along to the Captain. You understand."

"I understand," the woman said. "And I will stand by my word to him. Do you wish me to confine myself somewhere until the Captain considers this?"

Zoe locked her eyes with the eyes that were capable of sending a hardened Merc like Jayne diving for cover. She did it so that her feelings which she normally kept under tight control and hidden behind her own face could come out despite her professional caution over the incident.

"As I . . . also trust you . . . I don't believe that that will be necessary."

* * *

The 'new gal' as she was called behind her back even went back to school.

Kaylee, Inara and Book took turns teaching her Chinese. The woman was eager to learn and proved to be in some instances a very rapid and good student—as long as she didn't have to 'think' Chinese. She displayed the ability to learn to read it quite readily despite the inherent difficulty involved. She was much slower having to 'write', having to turn her own thoughts into strange words and grammar. She was almost completely unable to get it to come out of her mouth in any kind of comprehensible form, her efforts causing her teachers to have to control their laughter. One of her 'something tells me's' indicated that she had always been considered hopelessly monolingual when it had come to learning another language. Which begged for the question to be asked—what language other than English and Chinese had she once tried to learn? Book had a working knowledge of Latin from the Abbey and Inara had been taught French. Neither of those languages struck the woman any differently than Chinese had although a 'flash' had revealed to the woman that someone else she had known had been a French speaker.

The woman smiled. "So Zoe wasn't just being 'nice' to me, _shi bai zhe_ really does mean 'loser'."

Inara smiled back ignoring for the moment the way the woman 'butchered' (no nice way to say it) the pronunciation. "Not all words and phrases that are used in place of English are obscene. Some of them like _di shui zhi en dang yi yongquanxiangbao_—'a drop of water shall be returned with a burst of spring' are quite beautiful. Or they might have a significant meaning toward a certain subject. Such as your case. I think that towards you and your circumstances, _pinyin shi shang wu nan shi zhi pa you xin ren_ would definitely apply."

The woman gave Inara a look telling her to go ahead and drop the other shoe.

"That means 'you must persevere to accomplish seemingly impossible tasks'." After a moment, the woman nodded to acknowledge the wisdom of this.

Inara waited a moment, then gently said, "and in consideration of your 'task', I have training in several aspects of psychology and counseling. I would like to make myself available to you for counseling—"

It was all Inara could do not to jerk herself back when just a fraction of the cold hardness that had cowered Jayne came suddenly into the woman's eyes. It took all of her training for the Companion to hold her ground, to not allow her sudden fright to show on her face—

And it was fortunate that it lasted only a moment. The woman turned her head away almost immediately. Inara saw the mask blocking the woman's emotions slip fully into place. The woman continued to stare at the far wall for the longest time. Inara waited.

Finally the woman sucked in a hard breath, letting it out slowly. She didn't look back toward the Companion but the remorse in her voice was clear. "I'm sorry. That was not . . . intentional." Her head came up and she seemed to be staring at a point on the wall. "Nothing," she simply said. She then gave Inara a—it looked to be an embarrassed glance before dropping her head again. "Again I'm sorry, but nothing; no 'flash' or 'something tells me' came with that so I have no idea why it happened."

Inara waited a moment, then said softly, "I understand . . . and will say no more." She let another moment go by before she ventured, "if I may be so bold . . . what if I was to say, that I will _not_ counsel you . . . but that I would wish that we could talk?" After another moment she added, "just talk?"

The woman, after a moment of her own nodded. Then took in another deep, slow breath before looking back up.

Inara settled herself in her chair again. "Alright, now, let's see if we can get that voice of yours to not sound like a rusty gate hinge when calling someone a loser."

* * *

And—in consideration of the woman and her own voice—

After first few days, as her voice continued to heal and become stronger and clearer, her distinctive accent became more and more apparent. It quirked everyone for it was familiar and yet not. It was Wash who finally put a finger on it.

"She sounds like Badger trying to be really careful with how he talks."

When everyone agreed on this, Simon dug out his encyclopedia. His fingers danced as he did the research. "Let's see, Badger is from Dyton where the dialect is in various forms of . . . 'British English'. His particular style is called (punching buttons, holding up the unit to his ear, listening to the tiny voice coming out of the speaker) . . . 'London East-End'. Now our mystery woman's dialect is much more proper and refined so hers would be . . . (more button pushing and listening) . . . ah . . . it would be the 'Queen . . . or King's English depending on who was in power at the time." Simon looked up with an expression of accomplishment. "She could be from one of the Major Families on Dyton," he ventured. "That would explain her poise and educated vocabulary."

"It might also explain where she got that bark of hers," Jayne said, still smarting from the incident in the Dining Area. "Any high-and-mighty woman from a planet who uses convict labor for all its construction work would have learned how to order us plain folk around like the dogs we be."

An embarrassed silence came over the group in the Dining Area. Jayne looked about at everyone, "what . . . ."

He didn't get an answer.

* * *

Considering the smallness of the ship, it was impossible for Jayne and the woman to avoid contact. Jayne did like the fact that the woman had taken over all the 'grunt' maintenance and cleaning work outside of the Engine Room including all the shipboard chores that they all use to play cards for. He didn't even mind the fact that she has done so without any of the 'bitchen-moanin-complainin' that had marked his tenure at that task but he didn't like the fact that she did the work so well that it completely displayed how poorly he had done it—nor did he like how everyone else commented on this fact.

The contact between the two quickly devolved to Jayne giving hard stares, lots of muttering under his breath and more than occasional snipes against whatever it was the the woman was doing. Her countermoves against this treatment—

Was to completely ignore everything and anything coming from the Merc. But at the same time, if something required her to have direct contact with Jayne, she did so without hesitating, always displaying seemingly limitless patience while he vented his spleen, continuing to calmly and quietly press him for the information or item or direction she needed until he relented and gave it to her.

All this did was making Jayne even angrier. Sure, he'd had people ignore his abuse before, but there had always been something, _something_ that could be seen in reaction, even just a tightening of the jaw or a flash in the eyes.

The woman sucked it in like the black hole of her eyes had been—

Which made Jayne even more angry.

Wash had been very subdued but Jayne thought he could see the pleasure in the Pilots eyes. The same applied to Inara. The Merc _burned_ for a way to avenge his embarrassment. He wasn't the type to like to wait for revenge, he wanted it _now_!

And the woman treated him as if Jayne's anger didn't even exist.

She would not take part in much of the dinner table conversation. In fact she was never in the Dining Area except right at mealtime and unless it was her turn to help clean up, she left as soon as the meal was over. It seemed obvious to all that she was doing it to allow Jayne a place without her. The others didn't say anything about it—but Jayne wasn't really dumb, just obstinate and conceited, and he could see in the others that they knew what was going on.

While all the others went about their normal routines and hobbies, the woman seemed content to meditate in her cubicle attempting to make things come back to her. But the reality of it seemed to be that more things came back when she was interacting with the others for something they did would trigger a 'flash' or cause a 'something tells me'. None of them were huge revelations but as Simon kept saying, 'little bits'—

* * *

Wash came onto the Bridge for his early evening status/position check. As usual, things were dark, the illuminated controls providing the majority of the lighting. The Pilot shuffled over toward his chair, juggling a beverage and some data tapes. There was a growing problem with a section of the flight software that was beginning to concern him. Because it was a software issue, there really wasn't much that he could do about it except to troubleshoot to find the actual glitch. His flight school training in this had never gone beyond 'basic' but over the years, piloting _Serenity_ had given him plenty of on-the-job. It wasn't something he enjoyed but—

"Good evening."

"Agghh!" he jumped spilling the data tapes but managing to hold onto his beverage. With wide eyes he looked toward the co-pilot's station—

At the slender figure which was standing on the fore side of the station leaning back into the front of it. She had her hands up in front of her chest as if she was doing something with her hands there but her head was turned around to look over her shoulder—

At least she was gracious enough to look embarrassed and apologetic toward the havoc she had just caused. She immediately started to move to slide round the end of the control deck to help, telling the pilot, "I'm sorry, my fault entirely . . . ."

Wash held up a hand to stop her," Don't," he said in a wary voice that stopped her in her tracks. She stayed poised in place as he managed to get his drink down and secure before going down to start to pick up the disks. When it was obvious that he intended to do it all himself, the woman backed off the edge of the deck coming to stand in front of it. She continued to look remorseful as Wash got everything picked up and stacked on the console where he could reach it.

With that accomplished, he took a deep breath, looked at the woman with a very particular look and asked, "is there something you need?"

The woman looked—uncomfortable for a moment before managing, "no . . . I was just looking at the stars," she waved one hand toward the viewports as a part of that explanation.

Wash shifted uncomfortably before saying, "there's the windows in the observation circle in the Dining area," he said trying to sound firm and in control.

A slightly—dissatisfied look came to her face under the remorse and embarrassment. "I understand," she said, "there just too much light in there to see things properly." She moved over to the corner of the console again to slide around it. "I apologize for coming into your space. I realize now that I have not been given permission to move freely about . . . ."

Wash had his hand again, an agonized look on his face, "wait, wait . . . ."

The woman moved back to the front of the console again as Wash physically and mentally tried to pull himself together. Finally getting his nerves settled, he told her (hands splayed out in front of him as if he was warding off an invisible monster), "look, it's not personal. River and Inara and Simon and Kaylee and Mal and my wife all seem to trust you." He held a hand up to his chest. "I—this is the first time we've—it's a little uncomfortable—"

She gave him what she thought was a small understanding smile.

At that moment, that 'smile' looked like something else to the Pilot. Alarm came into Wash's face.

Causing surprise to come into hers. "What—?" she managed to ask.

Ten zillion thoughts had raced through his mind—with one paramount—

"You're not going to try to . . . seduce me are you?" was his weak question.

The incredulous look that came into her face actually made Wash feel better. As did the completely disbelieving/slightly offended tone in the woman's voice when she asked, "excuse me? Seduce you?"

Wash was franticly waving both hands, "forgetit, forgetit, forgetit . . . ."

"Not bloody likely mate," she told him with a look/tone _commanding_ him to provide an explanation.

So he gave the woman a brief but detailed description of Saffron and what had happened both in her 'marriage' to Mal, the subsequent seduction attempt of half the crew followed by her departure followed by the attempt to dismantle _Serenity_ followed in turn by her bringing them all in on her little caper on Bellerophon and everything that had happened with _that_. As he provided the information, the woman looked attentive but she showed no humor (at least toward the parts that he thought funny) and in the end looked grimly understanding. This—kind of perturbed Wash. Had she always been so 'business like'? Was that the reason why Mal and her had reached an understanding so quickly, because they were alike in their 'grim' (to Wash at least) view of the Verse as a whole?

"Interesting," was all the woman said when he had finished. It was only then that Wash realized that she was doing something with her hands in front of her again. Wash moved to settle into his chair but he kept an eye on her hands trying to figure out just what was she doing there—it was then that he realized that she had the ends of her long fall of hair in her hands—not that he could tell what it was she was doing with them.

"So . . . ." the woman then asked in a neutral tone, "am I okay to stay where I am for the moment?"

"Yeah," Wash told her in what he hoped was an offhand tone. He started to work the system in order to run the diagnostic routines for the flight software—

"This is like . . . a frontier isn't it?"

Wash looked up with just his eyes. The woman was leaning back against the co-pilot's console again looking out of the ports—

Her hands were still doing whatever it was with her hair in front of her.

"Well . . . yeah," he answered. "Not where we just were but where we're going could be considered frontier." He considered her a moment before asking, "you remember something about the Rim?"

"That term means nothing to me," was her answer. "But I did spend years out in what was considered . . . frontier."

"The Boarder then," Wash ventured.

"There was another name for it," she told him in that slightly 'far away' voice that meant that she was having one of her moments. "I told your wife—I think we called it The Outlands—but it was vast—hundreds—maybe thousands of star systems . . . and as wild and as unlawful—except for the law of the fist and the gun . . . and it had many, many Saffron's in it."

"That's . . . interesting," Wash managed, his discomfort level back up at the top.

He saw the woman glance over at him, a self-depreciating look coming over her features. "I know," and now there was sadness in her tone. "The Doctor used his encyclopedia to show me The Verse as you call it." A heavy sigh came from her. "It doesn't matter. I _know_ that I'm from elsewhere," she looked back over toward the Pilot, "even if you and yours have no idea where that could be."

Wash waited a moment, thinking back to what he had said to his wife about the possibilities of something else being 'out there'. Finally, the curiosity plain in his voice, he asked, "what else can you tell me about it?"

* * *

They arrived at the first/farthest out planet in Kalisdasa which was Salisbury. Like the aforementioned Dyton, the vast majority of those to colonize Salisbury had been peoples from the 'British' portion of Earth-that-Was. A small cool world due to its distance from its primary, it was primarily a farming world, a source of many kinds of vegetables and 'cool' fruits. Mal was hoping for a quick run of some kind of produce to get themselves established in the sector.

As the dust settled, the ramp came down. As it was what passed for summer in the city they had arrived in, it was a cool clear day and all of them sucked in their first fresh air in weeks.

All except Jayne who stood with his arms crossed and an unhappy frown on his face. His 'cunning hat' was perched on his head as he sat heavily down on a crate near the ramp. For it was his fate this time to be the one left behind.

In a conspiracy of epic proportions, Inara and Kaylee had gotten together _demanding_ to be allowed to go out together. They wouldn't say what they were going to do—and worse yet; they were dragging River along with them (not that she needed to be 'dragged'). Zoe was also pulling Wash along on a 'personal' shopping trip. They would also make whatever arrangements were necessary to restock _Serenity's_ consumables. Simon was to replace the medical stores that had been used while Mal checked for mail and looked for work.

That left—

* * *

"We need to come up with a name for you."

The woman smiled. "I answer just fine to 'hey you'."

Shepherd Book pursed his lips. "'Hey you' is _not_ the proper way to address a fine woman of your poise and beauty."

The two of them were walking through the market. Book had volunteered for the task of coming up with something for dinner to tide them over until the consignment of consumables arrived. Book had offered to use his own finances to at least give them a decent meal that night and as he was paying, it had been decided that he should also do the shopping. He had instantly enlisted the woman to assist him in this. So the two of them were slowly meandering through the stalls as he looked for the best bargains he could find.

Book had invited the woman for several reasons. The first was to be able to have some time with her to himself; her 'self' and all of the accompanying mysteries about her let alone the few things they could guess fascinated him. It was also obvious that she was much more educated that any of the other crewmembers except Simon and Inara. But, being that he had had many conversations with Inara and all Simon wanted to do in a one-on-one conversation was question and debate everything, Book had been looking for an additional source of intellectual simulation for some time. The woman fit the bill perfectly even if her current outlook and vision was much limited by her memory loss. Still it was very refreshing for Book to be able to carry on what he felt was a 'civilized' conversation.

The other reason was his hope that something in those same 'civilized' conversations might give her more of what she was calling 'flashes', bits and pieces of her lost past and self. So far however—

"Whatever gives you the impression that I'm a 'fine woman'," she asked with a laugh in her voice that made Book feel good. "I mean, it seems that the lot of you are absolutely convinced that I'm either some crazed assassin who's only waiting to be 'triggered' or a shell-shocked commander of a company of Galactic Marines."

_Now that's interesting_ Book mused. _We don't have marines in any of our armed forces. But I know the reference from the history books. If she really thinks that there is such a thing in modern times as marines, that could very well mean that she either is from a place that we know nothing about or—she is completely and absolutely crazy—which she may be considering whatever she means by 'galactic'_.

"Nonsense," was what he said however, turning his head slightly to give her his most engaging smile. "Everybody knows that any female assassin always has an alternate identity as a suave, sophisticated woman and a commander of a military unit such as a company would be considered an officer and a lady. So either way I am right. And as . . . steadfast as you have been with the others my dear, I expect you to defer to my seniority if not my lofty position as Shepherd."

Her eyes instantly narrowed and—

One of Books eyebrows went up in response.

The woman's eyes had continued into that 'faraway look' that all were hoping to see. But it was her tone—"I—I really hate to admit it Shepherd—but it seems to me that you're _not_ older than I am."

Now _both_ of Books eyebrows went up. Her response was a kind of self-depreciating smile before she asked, "you're . . . what Shepherd? Fifty five?"

His response, while his tone was light, he also gave her one of his most 'you're being evil' looks. "It is undignified for a man of religion to discuss his age—as it would be rude and improper for me to enquire about the age of a woman such as yourself."

"But that's the point," she replied even as she was concentrating on her 'flash'. "You're saying that your being 'older', 'senior' to me is part of what you're imposing. What I'm saying is that I think that you're really not older than I am."

"My dear," Book was using his most courtly manner. "Despite the fact that I am not suppose to notice, it is obvious that you are in your mid-thirties. And while I will not give you _my_ age, I will tell you that I am probably two decades in advance of that."

The woman displayed what could only be called a 'gottcha' smile, "that would mean fifty five and I'm oh-so-sorry Shepherd, but something tells me that I'm probably ten years older than you are."

Book could only look at her with a blank face. _She . . . seems to believe what it is that she is claiming. But there is no way—sixty five . . . or something close to that—no way with any of our sciences that she could be close to the age she claims._ His eyes turned away from her, seeking diversion while he tried to sort it out. Fortunately they were in front of a vegetable stand and he could start readily looking through the wares as a distraction. _Could such a thing be true _was the only thought that he had time for before—

"Zucchini!" he heard her suddenly exclaim. "I do a great dish with thes—!" her voice trailing off.

That brought Books head around again, his mind already dealing with this latest little shock.

As he expected, she was in front of the stand next to where he had been looking. She was holding one of the zucchini in her hands, the shocked look on her face already going into that faraway—

"You cook?" Book asked simply.

She nodded her head, eyes going half closed—

_This is a big one_ Book thought.

"I . . . cook," she said in a low breathless tone. "I cook . . . very well . . . ."

Book nodded sagely, before adding in a low voice, "then by all means my dear, let us continue our search to find the rest of the ingredients of your zucchini dish. I would wish to experience it at our earliest convenience."

* * *

"What _is_ this?" Wash demanded as his eyes closed in a dreamy face.

"It's a . . . vege-table . . . ." Jayne said with uncertainty. "I normally don't like—but this ain't bad."

"Bit of cheese," River was chanting, "drop of butter, pinch of salt—"

"Book, what did you do?" Kaylee asked enthusiastically as she shoved another mouthful in.

The crew of _Serenity_ had found themselves 'locked' out of the Dining Area upon their return. Book would not tell them why. It was only at the normal 'dinner hour' that he allowed them in. Of course the spacetight hatch had hidden the aroma that greeted them all. There was kind of surprised look to see the woman moving all the food from the galley to the table but all of them had unconsciously assumed that she had to have been helping the Shepherd due to the fact that they had gone shopping together.

Book gave them his biggest smile. "Ah, what you are appreciating is pure genius at work. Made possible through talent that few truly have."

"You made this?" Mal asked through a mouthful. "You've always been a pretty fair cook Shepherd but this? Jus where have you been keepin this talent?

Zoe was shaking her head as she said, "I second that. You've cooked before Shepherd and it's always been good but this—did you find something special in the market?"

"Indeed I did find something special in the market," was his reply grinning like that disappearing-except-for-the-smile cat in the strange story. He then turned back to Mal with a formal bow announcing, "and with the Captain's permission, I would like to nominate that special something which is in fact _someone_ to be the permanent cook of the good ship _Serenity_."

"Who—?" Wash asked, like the rest of them not understanding what Book was talking about.

"You?" but Inara did understand and she was looking at the woman with delight in her face.

The woman actually blushed.

Mal's mouth was open (and some of the meal was visible) for a moment before, "you made this?"

"Yes sir," she replied. "It came to me in the market and . . . ." there was actually an excited look in her face, "so much more—at least as far as cooking and being in the galley is concerned has come back to me since the good Shepherd goaded me into plunging in."

"This ain't right," Jayne muttered under his breath.

"So you're a cook?" Mal pressed ignoring Jayne.

The woman hesitated, her mouth half open—for what seemed like a long—

"I . . . cooked for my crew—actually several crews I think," a sad smile came to her face, "something came to me . . . a common saying that was used . . . something about how when you were working with small groups, small crews, you had to take your turn cooking, which meant that you had to learn how to cook and cook well if you didn't want to be chucked out of the airlock." That actually caused a couple of smiles from those at the table while the 'chucked out of the airlock' part caused sidelong glances in Jayne's direction. The woman's eyes were still back inward as she said, "I've cooked for . . . my mates . . . I've cooked . . . for fun . . . I've cooked . . . ." her face folded over—

Book moved next to her, "child?" he asked with a hand on her shoulder.

The woman took a shuddering breath before saying softly, "I . . . think . . . for family . . . maybe—" she could not say any more.

"Is everything you make like this?" Mal asked in a slightly sharp tone to get past her pain.

The woman pulled her head up/shoulders back, slapping that cool mask onto her features before saying in a shaky voice, "nothing is guaranteed of course based on the availability of supplies and everyone's personal preference," she did _not_ look at Jayne when she said that, "but I believe that I can maintain a fairly high standard for you sir . . . if you'll have me."

"Great," Jayne muttered again, "nother 'sir'n female."

Mal just looked at her for a moment before nodded his head. "Well lady, I don't see if the rest of you grub is anywhere near this good how I could say no."

Simon held up his already emptied place, "my lady, I am so glad to hear that. Might I have more?"

A small smile came back into her face relaxing the mask that had come back into place. At the same time, it was if she was trying to shake off a minor irritation—or attempting to keep a 'flash' from enveloping her. "Of course," she said managed in response to Simon's request.

But Book was already moving. "My lady, please, you are the chef, not the waiter, allow me to do that chore."

Wash held up his own plate, "this is really good stuff lady and—" his voice tapered off as they all saw her succumb deeply into another 'flash'—

Another big one—

Book was again back at her side, worried that so many, so hard, so quickly might harm, "my lady . . . are you alright?"

Her eyes came up to him and slowly focused, her tone was tight and—amazed ". . . all these ladies—I was called—lady—_I_ was _called_ Lady—!"

Book nodded his understanding venturing, "you had a title—?" _Is or was she part of the 'nobility' that is practiced among certain conservative factions within the Alliance where she would be addressed as 'Lady so-in-so daughter of Duke whowasit'_ he thought.

She shivered at his words, but managed, "I do not know but somehow it seems correct." She looked at him almost eye to eye for he was just slightly taller than her, "it's something that is really a part of me . . . of what I am . . . ."

"Then that's your name," Mal said very matter-of-factly. Every eye turned to him as he said, "solves a heap of problems cause I was sitting here thinking of how could I yell at my new cook if she didn't have a name other that 'hey you'.

The woman looked at him feeling just a bit—boggled—

Mal raised a glass to her in toast of the excellent meal saying, "welcome aboard Lady."

As River ran over to her, dropping into a deep, flourishing curtsey—


	14. Adjustment

Chapter Fourteen – Adjustment

* * *

Mal pushed the ladder open with his foot staring down into the dark compartment. "Ain't been used 'cept for storage since I bought her and it'll take more'in a little cleanin," he looked up and gave 'Lady' one of his non-smile smiles, "but that shouldn't be a problem for you."

Lady was looking down into the dark hole with one eyebrow half raised. Now that she was officially a member of the ship's crew, she was being moved into the one unoccupied crew quarters (the one next to Jayne and across from Kaylee). As her eyebrow went up further, a—smell came wafting up out of the hole.

Mal's nose scrunched at it as well but the expression on his face didn't change.

Lady actually snorted and a slightly amused smile came to her face. "Well sir, it seems that I do like challenges—"

It was quite some time later before Lady stood wiping the sweat from her brow. She took a look around at her handiwork, blowing a tired breath up past her nose where it caused several loose hairs hanging down into her vision to wave aside. She then nodded approval of her progress so far.

Using a hand lamp, she had entered the compartment; wishing as she did so that she had a breathing mask against whatever it was that was corrupted within. It didn't help that the ventilation had been turned off, the compartment basically sealed for a considerable period of time. This meant that things were . . . thick within. With the hand lamp she had located and dealt with the source of the odor—a clearly mummified 'something'. To make sure the problem was completely taken care of; she carried whatever it was clear out to a community trash receptacle on the dock outside of the ship.

Next she had worked to get one of the overhead lights working, not an easy task being that she was unfamiliar with the design and had the use of a single hand as she was using her other hand to hold the hand lamp in order to see what she was doing. When that was accomplished (she managed to shock herself _only_ three times), she then attempted to get the ventilation open. Despite her best attempt, she only managed to get it functioning in a marginal fashion.

Cleaning followed that. The longest, most tedious part was getting all the items which had been 'stored' in the compartment up the ladder into the forward passageway. Those were then carried down into the Cargo Bay. The Captain had told her to stow them aft of the main gangway in order to await Mal's and Zoe's inspection to determine what could be kept/restored in another location and what could be disposed of in the trash. The next chore—

It was also fortunate that they were on the ground for she used what was probably a week's worth of water as she scrubbed out every corner and surface within the compartment. She assumed that it would be easier to replace the water from an outside source rather than recycle it through the ships systems as if they had been in space which meant several trips out onto the dock and the public water spigot there. This meant another set of multiple trips up/down the compartment ladder as well as the Cargo Bay companionways—which then brought to mind the same mental question that had come to her while she had been dealing with all the stored items she had moved—which was who in their right mind would design a berthing compartment where the only entrance/exit was via a not-too-wide vertical ladder? This meant that anyone bringing anything in/out via that ladder as well as hauling the buckets with water/cleaner and/or any other bulky items in or out; all of it had to go up and down by rope from the forward passageway. Needless to say, it left her shaking her head in wonder.

Lady continued her look around the compartment. She had examined the sanitary unit . . . which seemed to be hopelessly clogged. The sink worked . . . although the color of the water was not pleasant. She sighed again. As far as those items there was nothing to do but seek Kaylee's help with it in the morning. Right now—

She sat down on the bunk frame. The mattress which she had found on the bed had been more than hopeless and had been tossed out into the same outside receptacle as the mummified odor source. The single working light fixture gave the space a stark appearance. The cabin was only getting at bit of cool/fresh air in through the partially opened vent leaving the smell of cleaning solution hanging heavy in the air; it was giving her a headache. She could also feel the sweat on her face, trickling down from her armpits, running down her back under her hair—

Her cabin—

_You can call this . . . yours now . . . not a passenger or guest cubicle. It shows that you . . . belong here . . . even if you don't belong . . . here._

She looked closely around . . . flashes and ghosts of memories tugging at her awareness. _You've known a lot of places like this . . . you've spent sometimes years . . . sometimes only days in places like this. It must mean that you've moved around a lot . . . spent time on a lot of different ships . . . and none of them . . . you called home. Only that one ship . . . that black arrowhead . . . that was _home_ to you . . . and you remember almost nothing about it._

She took in the bare walls. Something told her that the bareness didn't bother her. _For all the places you went, for all the movement you did, you didn't have much if anything to take with you from place to place. The clothes on your back and nothing else it seems. You didn't _own_ anything._

But—_that place . . . that you could finally call home . . . that black arrowhead. You had . . . things . . . _A vision of a large pit-like circular—kind of like a fire pit—surely not in space but the impression stuck. Other . . . bits of impressions passed through her mind; a comfortable couch that just felt . . . so warm and secure, two almost instantaneous flashes of what might have been the face of a cat . . . or was it two cats with very similar faces—

On the periphery of those memories . . . it was so ghostlike . . . it . . . could have been a figure . . . could have been someone she—

And it brought pain to her heart.

Despite the pain, she tried to bring in that memory, tried to focus on that figure . . . but the ghost slowly filtered away into nothing.

Just the pain lingered.

Lady felt sick from it. She would like to say to herself that it had to be an effect from the cleaning fumes and the lack of good air in the cabin. But she knew that was a lie. Something—she instinctively knew that it was something in her past that she had cut herself off from . . . and now she could not reconnect with it.

_That's why you can't remember that ship. Something happened . . . something you did . . . and you're paying the price now._ She closed her eyes and did the only thing that she could do, wait for it to pass.

_What were you? Who were you? Why does River see things in you that you can barely feel?_

A heavy sigh came to her. She then looked up. She had managed to reestablish her time sense and it told her that it was close to local midnight. If she was going to be up at a reasonable hour to do her morning workout before moving up to further explore the Dining Area and Galley and put together a decent breakfast for her 'crew and passengers', she would have to get some sleep.

With that, Lady popped off her borrowed slippers, curled up on the bunk frame without benefit of mattress or blanket, gathering her hair up in such a way that it made a ready-to-use pillow . . . and she was asleep in moments.

* * *

The crew was drifting out of the Dining Area as Lady started to clear the table. Complements had come from all around (except for Jayne of course) on breakfast. Mal and Zoe were headed out to again try and find some work. Book, Simon and River, armed with a shopping list from _Serenity's_ new cook were going out to try their best to fill it. Wash had gone down to the ramp to await delivery of ordered consumables. Jayne . . . disappeared.

"I'll get that," Lady told Kaylee . . . only to realize that Inara was helping clean up as well. "Hey, that is now my job—" she continued.

"Hush," Inara told her with an imperious wave of one hand. "We need to finish because we have plans . . . and we need to complete them before we take off in case we have to make changes."

Lady looked between the two of them for a moment, musing as she did so, "now just what is the lot of you up too. First you go off yesterday . . . something that all the others said was most suspicious . . . and now . . . you want to help me finish my work in order to 'finish your plans'. In my mind that sounds like a couple of biddies that have something up their—" Then Lady's eyes suddenly widened. "You didn't—"

Kaylee had a grin on her face that should have broken it. "You know," she said speaking directly in Inara, "it's nice to have someone on board who isn't as completely dense as all our men are."

* * *

"Uggh!" Kaylee grunted as she reached the bottom of the ladder of Lady's new cabin. She immediately started over toward the wall grate, throwing the bag which had been hooked over her shoulder onto the bed frame, "did you open both vents?" she asked, "its murder in here."

Inara was coming down the ladder. She was carrying two bags, but somehow she was managing to make it look graceful despite the load. As she hit the bottom, she looked around with disapproval at the stark bareness even as she held a hand in front of her nose. "Did you _sleep_ in here last night?" she asked in an appalled tone.

"Been in worse," Lady told them with maddening matter-of-factness as she came down last.

"Just because you've _been_ in worse doesn't mean that you have to be that way now," the Companion continued as she moved over to set her load down with more care than Kaylee had shown.

Kaylee grunted again, there was an accompanying '_rasp'_ was heard and more coolness began to flow in. Kaylee then stepped over and past Lady, who was standing with kind of a bemused expression next to the ladder, the Engineer going into the alcove beyond the ladder.

No amount of grunting or groaning could get that vent (which Lady had thought was a service access panel rather than a vent) to open, causing Kaylee to display a fine repertoire of Engineer's curses and comments. She finally gave up with an annoyed 'punch' to the front of the thing, "So you have feed air but no exhaust." She looked at the wall in front of her taping it with a finger, "have to go inside and trip it from in there." She then looked at Inara and Lady as if she had just realized that they were there and the world wasn't all engineers stuff. Without a trace of embarrassment, she waved her hands toward the bags with a cheery, "so, shall we?"

Inara was looking at Kaylee with what could only be called 'sisterly resignation over a helpless condition'. The Companion had sat on the bare bunk frame to wait. Now with a smile, she turned to the bags beside her and started to pull out what could only be clothing.

Inara then held up a hand as Lady started to open her mouth in protest. "It came out of my funds and you may pay me back as you can. And don't worry about what we got you. Companions receive extensive training in many aspects of fashion and grooming which also includes the concept of what is appropriate for various individuals."

"It's nothin fancy," Kaylee confirmed. "Three sets of coveralls that should _fit_ you instead of hanging off of you. A pair of shoes, undies—"

Inara smiled at the raised eyebrows Lady displayed at the mention of those 'unmentionables'. "Part of that training," she explained, "is helping clients pick out all sorts of gifts for the significant other persons in their lives. For that purpose, we learn how to accurately estimate all shapes and sizes for both sexes including things like the fitting of shoe's and the matching of bust lines and cup size."

Inara actually grinned at Lady's eyebrows rose even higher at that last part. There was an equally amused tone in the Companions voice when she added, "Kaylee and I are hoping you approve of what we have gotten for you; you've gone unholstered long enough even though that unseemly _thing_ you've been wearing hides all of your attributes other than your size and your hair. But if there is something that does not fit or you do not approve of, we want to have time to make exchanges before the Captain finds a job somewhere."

"We also got you some stuff for your cabin," Kaylee went on as she stepped over to the bag she had dumped on the bunk frame, looking with a 'scrunched' face at the bunk as she added, "you should have said somethin about not havin a mattress and covers to me before breakfast." Kaylee then started to pull things out of the bag, saying as she did so—"but like I said, we got stuff for your hair, stuff for the shower—"

"As far as your 'casual clothes'," Inara went on, "and other non-work items, we bought some practical pants and blouses. Those were . . . cheap (Inara gave an unhappy shrug) in case none of them are of a style you prefer. But it will allow you to go outside of the ship without having 'work clothes' on in order to get the kind that you actually want."

Lady looked . . . very uncomfortable. "You—you shouldn't have," was all she could say.

Inara smiled. "Let's just say that this is a down payment on many excellent meals."

"Now let's finish up," Kaylee urged full of enthusiasm.

* * *

"You're serious?" Kaylee asked later that night after dinner.

Lady nodded. "Yes, I am. You have enough to do as it is."

Kaylee considered this . . . because Lady was right. Mal had declared over Lady's excellent dinner, that he wanted to take off as soon as it was dark. He had gotten a line on a job that meant the ship had to shift across the continent to the docks where they were to pick up their load. They couldn't make the shift until the 'start of the work day' across the continent which meant after dark where they currently were.

It meant that Kaylee had to get the systems up, make the shift, hold the systems for the brief time it would take to bring the load on board, then take off for the cargo's destination. It would be middle-of-the-night boat time by the time all that was done and they would not be anywhere long enough to have any breathing spell.

Except for Lady and the passengers that is. Mal had exempted the new cook because she really wasn't needed on this job and he knew that she was still getting herself oriented as to her tasks and living space.

Kaylee clearly looked uncomfortable at what Lady was asking.

"Something tells me," Lady said softly in an attempt to allay the Engineer's concern, "that at various times in my life that I assisted with ship repairs and maintenance." She waited a beat before adding, "I would not touch or disturb anything that I wasn't positive about."

Kaylee was still uncomfortable. She shared a lot of the electrical/electronic work with Wash who had training in it. Mal was also able to do some electrical work but most of it was marginal stuff that he had learned-by-doing right after he had bought _Serenity_. He and Zoe could do equipment maintenance based on his ranch upbringing and her military training. Jayne was good for grunt work—

Now a stranger—

Not that she was _really_ a stranger . . . but still—

But—Lady had readily helped Kaylee after lunch in unclogging the sanitary unit as well as flushing the water lines to her new cabin. Lady has seemed sure and competent in what she had been doing and she _had_ deliberately waited for Kaylee's direction in each step of the work even if there had been things that she could have done without waiting for Kaylee to give her a go ahead.

"Well," Lady said, "I can tell that you're really uncomfortable with this so—"

"No," Kaylee stopped her with a held up hand. "It's not that I don't trust you—" The Engineer looked around. She grabbed up a pencil and a piece of paper. "Look, I'll draw a diagram. That vent is probably closed because the blowout preventer—the decompression security lock is probably on the fritz. There was never any need to check it 'cause that compartment was just storage."

Lady came to look over Kaylee's shoulder as the Engineer continued to talk and illustrate the scribbles she was making. When she was done, Kaylee went over and grabbed a toolbox—

"So all the right sizes should be in here. Remember, that sensor spring is really fragile so it can react to a blowout immediately and really expensive because the design is so old."

Lady took the toolbox, the look on her face remaining unsure. "Are you sure you're okay with this. I can wait."

"No," Kaylee said firmly. "I can't have you sleeping in that tomb another night and it will be at least tomorrow afternoon before I could get to it." Kaylee gave a sudden smile. "Besides, if you right 'bout what you think you did before, maybe more will come back, maybe a lot more will come back like it did with your cooking—"

The smile became a grin. "And who knows then, you could be back here helping me."

Lady gave the Engineer a small, resigned smile before turning and heading out of the Engine room. She headed up through the Dining area and into the forward passageway. There she turned into the companionway for the ladder leading down into the Cargo Bay, going down into a squat to access the service hatch that Kaylee said she should use.

Minutes later she carefully making her way along the dark service catwalk, half bent over due to the low overhead. The service lighting was widely spaced and very dim causing Lady to stop and try to figure out just what was on the catwalk in front of her. Pulling a work flashlight, she lit up whatever it was that was ahead of her—

It was River.

Lady took in a long slow breath.

The Doctor had taken pains to thoroughly explain to Lady his sister's current phases and conditions. He was apparently fearful of Lady's reaction if something should trigger River even though a full blow eruption had become (thankfully) a rare occurrence (this also made it clear that Simon knew nothing about Lady and his sister's early morning 'trainings'). But River still did go through her other phases. Right now, it was clear to Lady that River was in one of her non-responsive times when the young woman would just lay on her side with her eyes open, not reacting to any outside stimulus as she was lost in whatever world she was in. Lady had been told that sometimes this happened on an open catwalk but usually it was within the crawlways and access tubes that had become so much of Rivers world aboard _Serenity_. Simon speculated that it was because River felt 'safe' in the confined areas . . . especially during the times when she became—

_Maybe_, Lady thought, "_this is why River is so insistent that I am not 'lost, that I am only . . . 'misplaced' . . . which I guess means that my memories are still rattling around inside my head somewhere waiting for something to knock them out into the open. But when she's like this, she truly is lost._

Lady looked at the younger girl, feeling (and hoping that River could feel) compassion for her.

As well as something else—

_Something tells me . . . that something happened to me years ago . . . something involving something or someone playing with my mind. I've come to the feeling that that's the reason why I had such an adverse reaction to Inara's offer for 'counseling'. Is that why River feels so comfortable with me? Because she can tell somehow, we have something like that in common?_

Of course, the older woman didn't have an answer to that. She could only hope that someday she would. But right now she had to figure a way to get around River without disturbing her. Fortunately she glanced around to see the ladder down to the bottom of the hull space. She quietly used that, passing 'under' River and moving forward to the outside of 'her' cabin.

Following Kaylee's notes and diagram, she started on the task. As she did so, just like with the cleaning and organizing she had done to the interior of her cabin and the ability to cook, 'it' came to her that she had the talent and the ability to do maintenance and equipment work . . . just as the fact that she 'understood plumbing' which had come to her that afternoon while working with Kaylee to clear her sanitary unit. With this, Lady came to accept that she could do such work. She 'knew' that she didn't enjoy it like Kaylee did (she realized that she didn't enjoy it at all—it was simply a job to be done) but it was something that she was more than well versed at.

It turned out that the actual job didn't take all that long to complete. The slowness of her work was only because of Kaylee's statements regarding the delicacy of the parts involved. It was during that time that noise, vibration and a sense of movement told her that they had taken off and were flying across the face of the planet toward their destination. By the time she had finished the work they had been in the air maybe a half an hour. Lady packed up everything, made a final check to make sure that she had left nothing behind before she looked back down the dark service crawlway—

At the form of River—still unmoving. Lady considered the young girl—her 'student' for another moment. Something told her—that there was more to what was happening with River than those aboard knew. Lady had to wonder if in her case—if the fact that she had 'fresh eyes' when it came to the young girl—

But Lady knew this was not the time to bring it up with the Doctor or any of the others on board—for she had nothing except her 'feelings' in the matter.

Which meant that she had to work at exposing the basis for whatever gave her those feelings as long as she could do it with no harm to any of the parties involved.

Lady looked toward making her way along the bottom service platform, her foot starting to move—

Lady then instantly froze, an instinctive reaction caused by River suddenly jerking up, looking down and over, her face wide-eyed as if something had suddenly startled her.

And there River stayed, staring at some point on the dim metal walls of the service area. Lady guessed that River's point of vision was about eight feet over from her position and two feet up that opposite bulkhead. A quick glance confirmed that there was nothing there that she could see but she had no doubt that whatever it was it was real to River.

In a manner drilled into her by several different training regimens, Lady was literally 'frozen' for the few minutes she observed River—

For it took a minute before the realization came to Lady—River's head was slowly moving—moving as if she was 'tracking' something down the bulkhead and across the 'floor' of the service area that only River could see.

Two minutes or less had gone by before River—whose head had gone through more than a 120' arc as if she was watching a distant mountain move past through a viewing window—slowly relax, her body/head gently collapsed back down into her side-lying position on the walkway above Lady.

Lady remained motionless for an additional five minutes to see if there was any further reaction from the young girl. When there wasn't, she silently made her way back down the service way, holding the toolbox to her chest with one arm to avoid any sudden loud noise, passing under River without any reaction on the girls part, going around the corner that was the bulkhead for the Captain's cabin to the ladder which would return her to the access in the forward companionway—

Lady knew now that she had something else to think about. A single incident did not make a theory and while she didn't want to 'spy' on River, Lady knew that she would have to confirm or disprove what she _thought_ River had just experienced—

Fresh eyes—

* * *

It was on toward evening the following day. As they were in space on their way to the cargo's destination, the Dining Area was in dark mode with only the table light and a couple of alcove lights going in the galley. Book was at the end spot of the table, once again reading his bible. It was very quiet.

Every once in a while, the Shepherd would look up. His eyes would watch for a moment, thoughts and speculations flashing behind them before he would go back to The Book. The glances upward became more and more frequent—

Finally, he made a decision. Rising quietly to his feet, The Book clutched over his heart with both hands, he came around the table and moved over to the circular 'observation' area.

"Might I have a moment?" he asked softly.

Lady looked up. Even since Book had come into the Dining Area to study (Kaylee and Simon were down in the Lounge being involved with each other hence his coming up to the Dining area), Lady had been silently sitting in one of the chairs, staring straight ahead at nothing. She didn't look troubled . . . that was the reason why Book had been so hesitant . . . she had just been quietly fiddling with the end of her long hair, repeatedly putting it into a knot before untying the same but he had finally decided that she was looking 'lost' and for that reason he had decided to approach her.

"Yes?" she returned his inquiry. He was glad that there was no sign of annoyance in those very deep eyes.

"I couldn't help but notice the way you were sitting here," he told her in his most Shepherdly voice, "I was wondering if I could somehow offer some assistance?"

A questioning look came into her eye. "And just what kind of assistance might that be?"

Book hesitated for a moment before, "you were looking . . . a little lost." He took a deep breath—there was nothing to do but to go for it. "Nothing in any of our past conversations has given to me the impression that you are not a Child of God. I was hoping that I, as a Shepherd, might offer some assistance in time of need."

The questioning look in Lady's eyes turned . . . thoughtful. After a moment, she waved a hand to Book indicating that he should sit. With a grateful nod of his head he did so. He then waited for her train of thought to work its way through.

"Obviously I haven't given this any thought," she told him at last, giving him a look which was a cross between slightly sheepish and a little annoyed. "But now that I have—if you'll forgive me Shepherd, I have to admit that I have been praying at night for the return of my memory and for my return to wherever it is that I am from but—" she stopped and studied him for a moment.

Book took a guess at what it was that was causing her to hesitate. "The Universe is God's and God is the Universe my child. Even if, wherever you come from, what is called or is considered your religion is markedly different than my faith, in God's eyes it doesn't matter. What does matter is that we come to Him, we meet Him, and we praise Him on equal terms where our versions of faith meet and complement each other while allowing whatever and wherever we differ to be accepted as that, the differences of brothers and sisters who still believe in the same basic things."

Lady looked at him for a very long time. Book could see that thoughts were racing behind those eyes. For that reason, he held his silence and waited for her.

"I have to say that I agree my good Shepherd," she told him at last. "For if I can trust and understand what it appears my feelings are in this matter, we are both alike and different." She cocked her head in challenge at him. "And you truly believe that any differences do not matter?"

"As long as you hold to God," Book said with a firm tone, "believe that He is your Creator and follow His Commandments."

_That_ got him a grim smile. "I think therein lies the problem Shepherd.

He cocked his head back at her. "How so?"

Lady took a breath and closed her eyes. Book could see that she was marshalling her thoughts.

"One of the first things that came to me," she started, "well, actually I think both the Captain and the First Mate were the ones reacting to it . . . was I ex-military, was I a 'Browncoat?" Lady opened her eyes and looked at him with that deep piercing stare of hers. "Browncoat means nothing to me. Military does. And I've told several of those on board including you that I've known war and military operations and service life." She raised an eyebrow to him. "You know the expression 'there are no atheists in foxholes'?"

That raised both of Books eyebrows. "Indeed," he told her in acknowledgement.

That piercing look, now almost challenging was back. "I have a religion Shepherd. I haven't remembered the name of it but I can tell you this, where I am from it is a religion practiced solely by and membership is restricted to only combat veterans. No church, mosque or temple, no liturgy, no music. Preachers, pastors, priests, clergy, rabbis, imams, monks . . . they don't hold services, they provide services such as holy books or listening to confessions or leading a prayer . . . as well as participating directly in actual combat. But the underlying understanding and the primary focus and focal point of the 'religion' is the understanding that everyone recognizes . . . that at the critical moment, at that moment when that grenade lands in your foxhole or that enemy fighter on your tail launches its fire-and-forget interceptor missile, that whatever you think or say in that instant is just between you and God. No one else. You are alone with Him and whatever happens is His will."

Lady looked at Book a little challenging. "You said 'follow His Commandments'. The Commandment 'thou shall not kill' is not recognized because killing is a soldier's business. 'Thou shall not take thy Lords name in vain' is not recognized because it's a soldiers right to cuss and yell blasphemies with every other breath. The Sabbath is not held holy because war and destruction doesn't know a day off."

The challenge faded from her eyes replaced by a look which could only be called 'humble understanding' as she went on with, "you pray to God when you hear those shells incoming or when your ships shields are down and those energy torpedoes are on their final run. You pray to Him when you wrap yourself in that dirty blanket that you'll wake up in the morning and you thank Him when you in fact live to see that dawn. You thank Him for every scrap of food and water and you thank Him (she held up her left hand to him) that that piece of shrapnel only took off your hand rather than your head."

She waited a moment before explaining, "I don't remember but I know that at some point in my life, I lost this hand, cut off clean four inches above the wrist. Medical science must have gotten it back—and I'm thankful to Him for that."

Book was giving her a look just as piercing as hers. After a long moment he asked her, "do you hold onto the other Commandments?"

"I can't speak for others, but for myself, I hold onto the remainder as well as I can."

"This is actually a recognized religion . . . where you are from?" Book asked quietly.

She simply nodded.

Book thought for a minute before, "so—things had to be 'changed' to accommodate only Seven Commandments?"

Lady looked at him for a moment before giving Book what could only be described as a 'lopsided' smile.

"Actually," she told him in an almost amused tone, "there are Ten Commandments. However, the three 'replacements' are a little different than what might be expected."

Book's eyebrows went very high as they asked the question—

"Take the most important one for instance," she told him in reply. "The First Commandment is—'Thou shall Clean, Service and Maintain thy Weapon before all other Considerations.'" At that moment she actually grinned. "The other two are just as . . . unconventional as far as the Bible is concerned."

Book looked at her, considering all that he had heard. Finally he gave her a nod—

Asking a moment later, "might I pray with you? Is that allowed?"

After a moment, she nodded.

After another moment, Book gave her a small nod of acknowledgement before he bowed his head, hers following suit as he intoned—

"Let us pray—"

* * *

"Ma'am, wait—"

Zoe stopped, looking over at Lady with surprise, the bite of rope hanging from her one hand.

Mal had gotten a job hauling bins of local produce to the sector capital. A truck with a lift had delivered the load into the Cargo Bay where the crew was in the process of strapping it down in preparation for takeoff. Zoe, clinging to the side of one of the fourteen foot tall stacks had been about to throw a loop of rope over the top when Lady had stopped her.

"Yes?" Zoe asked back, both a little annoyed and surprised.

"If I may ma'am," Lady said as she reached up for the rope in Zoe's hand. Zoe's eyebrow was the only reply but she let it go to the woman below her. Zoe then hung there while Lady stood for a long moment looking up and down the stack, around the corners and around the deck. Then, she stood for several beats in apparent intense thought. Lady finally looked down and unhooked from the deck tie down point Zoe had been hooked into. Lady threw the tie down into a different slot, routed the line through a clip point in the bottom container before going around the side of the stack where she snapped into a second clip point.

Intrigued now, Zoe allowed herself to drop to the ground, watching with interest as Lady went about her work. Zoe realized after another minute that Lady was tying down the stack at three deck hard points rather than four using less rope and yet providing a more stable stack. She pitched in, following Lady's pattern and taking Lady's direction when she was unsure.

They were done with their stack long before Kaylee and Mal or Jayne and Book were done with theirs. The two women stood to the side of the bay watching the others struggle and run out of rope or have to move or adjust—

"You know they're not going to be happy," Zoe said softly with a nod toward the others. "But I must say that I'm impressed. Can you remember where you learned to tie down cargo?"

Lady's eyes were closed for a moment, "I—I don't think it was cargo. My memory is . . . vehicles . . . and small craft."

Zoe looked at her again. If Lady had been in fact in _someone's_ military, she could understand her knowing about the tying down of vehicles. Zoe herself had experience with vehicles when she had still been part of the regular army. But vehicles other than what was 'organic' to a particular planet/moon had been few and far between for the Browncoats. Still— "what kind of small craft?" Zoe asked.

After a moment Lady could only shake her head. "It won't come. They were certainly smaller than your shuttles."

Zoe's eyes narrowed. She didn't know of any craft other than small personal atmo flyers that were smaller than their shuttles, certainly nothing spacegoing. She then looked over suddenly to find a puffing and sweating Mal standing right there looking at the two of them—

"Don't say that you're done," he said in an accusing tone.

"Ah . . . yes sir," Zoe said earnestly.

He glanced at the stack that the two women had been working on. "And that's ready for takeoff?" still in that same tone.

"Yes sir," was again Zoe's reply. Zoe then flashed a glance at Lady before looking back to Mal with a look, "would you like some help with your stack . . . sir?"

That just got them a glare before Mal turned away. Kaylee watched their Captain walk by, she then looked at the two women calling, "if you can help us, we'd appre—"

"We don't need no help," Jayne shot in coming into their view with an angry look at the two women. He then thrust another length of rope into Kaylee's hand with a curt, "throw that over the top to me." Kaylee glared at Jayne then turned and gave to two women a shrug before she started to clamber up the side of the stack.

Zoe watched a moment where Jayne had disappeared before turning toward the aft ladder with a, "let's leave them to their misery."

* * *

As they came out of the companionway into the forward passageway, Zoe turned to Lady, folding her arms across her chest as she said, "are you aware of just how hard you're pushing Jayne's buttons?"

Lady returned the hard look for a moment before nodding. "Yes I am . . . although I don't feel as if I'm doing it intentionally. It seems to be that my mere presence offends Jayne . . . but I don't intend to change the way I'm doing anything because I don't think I'm doing anything wrong."

Zoe had to . . . nod internally to herself. Others whom she might have asked that question of would probably have gotten defensive or withdrawn. Again she felt the . . . unknown kinship that she and Lady had to have shared. There were times (like now) when Zoe had the strangest feeling that she was talking to herself. Problems were faced, not avoided; talk was frank, straightforward and honest. Responsibility was acknowledged and adhered to.

"I don't expect you too," was Zoe's equally honest answer to Lady's statement. "But I feel the need to let you know that for all his bluster, that he's sneaky and cunning. He fears you but he doesn't respect you. He fears me but there's respect in that fear. He knows in some ways and things that he is better than me, a better long-range-with-a-scope shot, a better brawler—"

"But not good enough to tie up with you I would wager," Lady said with a grim smile.

Zoe shook her head. "I normally don't brawl. I'm a combat soldier, if I tie up with someone I'll do my gorram'est to kill 'em with the first blow I get in." She considered what she had just said for a moment before adding with a shrug, "although, if it's one of the 'brawls' that the Captain gets into every Unification day, I usually 'play nice' with those and not really hurt anyone."

Lady nodded again. "And I would assume as a soldier that any reaction would be an automatic, instinctive one so there would be no way that anyone . . . not to mention Jayne's name, would try a sudden attack."

Zoe shrugged. "He might blindside me with a wrench to my head or something but he would be afraid of what would happen if he missed or I ducked."

"Would he do that?" Lady asked carefully. "Are we having this conversation because you're . . . advising me that I need to watch my back?"

Zoe thought for a moment before slowly shaking her head. "I don't _think_ so," she said a moment later. "You're a part of the crew now. Something happened not long ago . . . something that Mal won't say much about. But whatever it was, it slapped Jayne upside that hard head of his when it came to those of us aboard."

"Let's be honest," Zoe continued. "And part of the problem is that . . . you don't fit in with what's about in a lot of ways." Zoe looked uncomfortable for a moment before she said, "the truth is that even I'm kinda strange. Seems the whole Verse still thinks that females . . . strong females . . . are the exception rather than the rule. Doesn't apply as much in the Core or to a female involved in one of the accepted trades like a Doctor even though there's a trace of . . . I guess it's called . . ." her voice trailed off as she tried to find the word.

"I do believe its called sexism," Lady put in for her. She then got a . . . quirky look on her face adding, "although I don't know how I _know_ that word."

Zoe shrugged. "Doesn't matter, it works. But to a moderate extent, sexism is just as bad in the Core as it is out here but its hidden better. 'Out here' through the Border and way out on the Rim, it's more than plain that men run most things, and the women let them. Strong female fighters are rare . . . very rare . . . there's maybe a thousand of us all told . . . that's why we're havin such a hard time believin that no one's ever heard of you."

Lady cocked her head to one side looking a little confused. "Why am I so different?"

Zoe hesitated for a moment before, "because you're beautiful . . . you're stunning . . . you look like you should be the wife of a Council Member or a top-draw 'tainment actress."

Lady was . . . speechless. It took a whole minute before she was able to sputter, "that's—that's bloody bullshit! All of the other women that I see here are as—"

Zoe held up one hand, slightly amused over the fact that wherever she was from, Lady seemed to use the English term for male steer manure as a cuss word rather than the Chinese phrase that everyone else generally used. Lady stopped at the hand . . . but it looked as if there was steam coming out of her ears.

"Let's continue to be honest, I'm simply plain and being a soldier, there's not a lot of men who would want me outside of a quick bang in the back hall," what could only be described as a small 'evil' quirk came to Zoe's lips, "goes to show that Wash is more eccentric than most know."

The look dropped from Zoe's face as she went on. "Kaylee is . . . warm, vivacious, but still, she's a plain town girl who likes machines more than she does most people. Inara is beautiful, but she's a Companion which makes her havin to be beautiful—"

"What _is_ a Companion?" Lady had to ask. "Inara has used the word about herself more than once but it seems to have some kind of meaning of which I'm not aware of?" It looked as if Lady was thinking furiously. "I mean, she talks about a 'temple' and 'training' and 'counseling' and helping men get gifts for the woman in their lives . . . I mean it almost sounds . . . I can't remember the word—"

Now it was Zoe's turn to be a little bit—boggled. Why would so much of Lady's memory come back to her so easily but large parts of it, like knowing Chinese and what a Companion was . . . why hadn't that come back as well?

Zoe waved it away, "it's probably exactly what you're thinking it is but . . . ask Inara . . . it's complicated . . . and you might as well get it from an her point of view rather than the various ways you'd get it from from Mal or the Shepherd. But the point that I'm making is that because of your beauty and poise, it is probably biologically impossible for Jayne to think of you as anything but a spy or an assassin which makes him fear you even more while at the same time it's impossible for him to see you as anything other than the beautiful woman that you are . . . and that means that you're not capable of being a threat to him yet you do thing after thing which shows that you are. He's confused and threatened and disbelieving and in denial—"

"Is he so thick headed that he's not capable of learning?" Lady asked.

"He's afraid to learn," Zoe corrected. "You're so much outside of the norm that it makes him feel both stupid and less than what he is. He can't accept that you can probably wipe the floor with him without working up a sweat and there's very few females among that thousand that I mentioned that are capable of doing just that and none of them come close to the way you come off lookin." Zoe gave out an amused snort. "Face it, the couple of females that could take Jayne—well—let's just say that they all look just like him . . . right down to the massively bulging muscles and the facial hair."

Lady looked at Zoe for the longest moment, obviously uncomfortable with Zoe's appraisal of her, worried that she was in fact unintentionally fanning the flames through no fault of her own. Lady was however, not shy about seeking Zoe's advice. "So . . . just what are you recommending?"

Zoe shook her head. "I'm not recommendin anything. I'm just trying to make you aware of the reasons why he's acting the way he is. The Captain has his moments as well as we just saw. But Jayne is the problem . . . and as much as I think that he would never try anything too drastic I hope that you never let your guard down around him."

Lady's eyes were narrow and her tone was . . . tight when she said, "I gave my word to the Captain that I would not cause trouble. I mean to live up to that."

Zoe shook her head again saying, "I only hope that you never _have_ to go back on that word." Zoe then gave Lady a very small smile. "Because if you ever have to . . . I think whoever caused it is going to be in for a whole lot of reflectin on what an ass they were."

Zoe then just gave another hint of a smile as she added, "If you haven't shoved their head up that ass that is."


	15. Routine

Chapter Fifteen – Routine

* * *

"What do you mean he's not here?" roared the angry male voice.

With a 'questioning' eyebrow raised, Lady poked her head around the side of the main gangway where she had been working most of the morning. Mal and Zoe had gone through all the 'storage' she had pulled out of her new cabin, pronouncing their desires as how to deal with the various items. The results of which she was currently going through, repackaging what they had indicated that they wanted to keep and gathered everything else which was to be disposed of.

The bellow that she had heard had been considerable due to the fact that it had erupted outside of _Serenity_ yet she had clearly heard it from her place far back in the Cargo Bay. She waited a moment, looking out through the Bay toward the bright daylight outside through the open Bay doors and lowered ramp waiting to see—

Then she heard the voice roar again, "well how gorram long am I gonna have to wait?"

Kaylee, standing at the bottom of the ramp was trying very hard not to bite her lip or wring her hands or otherwise fidget as she faced the angry teamster. "I'm sorry. The Pilot got a call just a couple of minutes ago to go pick up another order. I said that I can sign for yours—"

"And I told you," the very large, unshaven dirty-coveralled teamster hollered, "that whoever placed the order is the one who has to sign! Now my time is bein wasted and I've got other deliveries!"

Kaylee tried once again to give the hard looking man a disarming smile, "he'll only be a few minutes. Can I get you—"

"No you can't!" the teamster yelled back at her. "I'm just gonna take my load and move on! You guys can just reorder and get charged for both!"

"I'll sign."

The teamster reacted instantly. He was used to interruptions like this, some crew supervisor or maybe every once in a while the ship's captain themselves, coming out to try to save the situation. It didn't make any difference to him; they all got the same treatment. His head snapped around to snarl at the newcomer—

Hard, piercing eyes of a hawk!

He froze with his mouth open—then he ground his mental gears as he tried to shift—

"I said," he almost stammered but somehow he managed to make it _almost_ sound like a growl, "that only the person that makes the order—"

"I will sign for him," Lady told him in what sounded like a perfectly normal speaking voice . . . backed up the command and authority of an Alliance cruisers broadside. She came to stand directly in front of the teamster, interposing herself between Kaylee and the man. "Since your time is so valuable," Lady went on, her tone still holding to that of command but with an urging undertone. "This is certainly better than having you return later."

The teamster tried to get his mental feet under him with a near-snarl, "back off girlie."

Lady's eyes turned cool, "you should stand down mate."

Things got downright tense—

The test of wills was enough to cause Kaylee to take a step back. That small retreat gave Kaylee enough distance to see that Lady, despite her size was almost a full head shorter than the brutish teamster. Not that that seemed to matter any for Lady was holding her hands out as if she was fully expected the teamster to hand her the delivery documents and the signing stylus without question. Kaylee realized that it seemed as if, by sheer force of will and personality, that Lady seemed to be the larger, more powerful of the two belligerents.

"I—" the teamster started again, just a trace of hesitation coming into his voice.

"You do not want to get into a pissing contest with me mate for it will turn into a schoolboy howler for you," Lady told him, the command presence still in her voice but—a dangerous undertone had entered it. "I have a very active imagination and I imagine that I can run up with more than one scenario to tell whoever you work for that maybe you're skimming off some of the supplies you deliver, using that postal knife on your belt to open the boxes and that roll of packing tape on the hook next to your seat to seal them up again. Just what is under that blanket on the floorboard under your seat?"

Pure unadulterated hate came into the teamsters eyes, but it only veiled the sudden shock and worry behind it. "You ain't got—" he managed.

"I don't _need_ to," Lady growled back, those hawk like eyes suddenly going cold, the predatory lion coming into her face, her tone going frigid and hard. "If you push me, I'll take the biscuit on it. You won't know what hit you."

Kaylee took another step back. Lady was suddenly like Jayne was when he started to get crazy—_where __did __that __come __from_ she wondered?

The teamster hesitated—he moved to bring his fist up between the two of them, intending to shake it in front of Lady's face as a threat—

Lady's own hand shot out, gabbing that fist in an enfolding grip. The teamster in surprise tried to jerk it back—only to find his fist locked in a vice-like grip, his eyes going wide as his mind registered the strength it took for the woman in front of him to hold his hand in that manner—that realization causing wonder to come into his face.

"I wouldn't advise it mate," Lady told him, with an angry curl of her lip that made Kaylee take another step back. "If you try to offer me out you're in for a bloody good tonking—"

For a moment—things seemed to teeter on the edge.

Then the teamster visibly relaxed his body lowering his eyes. Lady waited for a moment then released the teamster's fist as she took a half-step back.

"_Nan __zuo __de __baio __zi,__"_ the teamster spat at Lady as he thrust out the document for her to sign—

Kaylee retreated with Lady to the top of the ramp to allow the teamster to unload without their being too close. They both kind of 'winced' when something was intentionally dumped or bodily thrown but neither of them said anything.

When the teamster was done, he angrily climbed aboard his wagon and took off, flashing them an obscene gesture as he did so. It was only then that Kaylee looked to Lady in wonder. "How did you—?"

Lady snorted. "Bloody spackhead like that (she sounded _really_ annoyed)—" She then took a deep breath before looking at Kaylee, her face going back to her normal calm coolness. "A guess. But it seems that there are a lot of things that are the same in both your Verse and my galaxy. It seemed obvious that he uses his size and the threat of his bypassing a customer to bully things out of people as much as he can. So it was reasonable that he was less than honest as well." She then gave the smaller Engineer a crooked smile as she added, "of course, always have a backup plan or three in case your guess doesn't work. If he hadn't reacted to the inference that he was skimming things from both his employer and the customers, the next on the list was he was attempting to deliver pre-damaged goods." With that, Lady pointed at one of the cases which had been badly dented at one corner _before_ being dropped off by the teamster (whereas it was currently _more_ dented after being rudely dropped).

Kaylee was still staring at Lady. She went to ask again, her voice lower, more hesitant, "no . . . I mean . . . how . . . you were all of a sudden . . . I know Mal does it sometime to intimidate and Jayne gets that way when he's ticked—"

Lady watched Kaylee for a moment, then looked away. Kaylee was slightly startled when she realized— _she __looks __as __if __she__'__s__.__.__.__unsure__—_

"Something tells me that—," Lady's voice was suddenly tired, "I told the Captain in one of our talks that I'm not really a 'people person'. It seems that I don't have a lot of patience with certain types of behavior or certain types of people." She then kind of gave Kaylee a shrug. "After that, a lot of it is simply acting, pure and simple projection of will and confidence." A small self-depreciating smile then came to Lady's face. "Of course, it has to usually be backed up by ability—which according to the lot of you I apparently have." She shrugged again before adding, "even so, I'm sure you've seen video someplace of the little house cat facing down the big bear. It's all in how you project it."

Kaylee looked up in wonder, shaking her head. Her eyes then dropped away.

Lady couldn't help but notice. "What's the matter?"

Kaylee seemed to sigh. "I wish there were times when I was tougher."

"Don't."

Kaylee looked up at the woman next to her with surprise. "Just a couple of days ago," Lady told her in an offhand way, "someone described you to me as 'warm, vivacious, but still, she's a plain town girl who likes machines more than she does most people'."

Kaylee's face clouded with dismay. "Who said that? I like people!"

Lady flicked a finger at the disorderly pile of consumables at the bottom of the ramp. "Did you like him?"

Kaylee . . . found herself caught. But still, "well, he was a—" she stopped before she said the Chinese obscenity.

Lady raised an eyebrow.

"Well—," the Engineer said in an unhappy tone.

Lady looked up into the sky. "Something tells me that at some point in my life, something turned me from a mischievous, fun-loving girl into a cold, bitter harpy." Her voice faded until Kaylee could barely hear her. "That lasted many years. A cold dark pit that almost swallowed me. Something tells me that I did it to be tough. I was tough . . . but I was alone, even among many."

Kaylee looked at her with a worried expression. Lady's eyes came back down . . . and she smiled a warm smile at the Engineer. "Be yourself Kaylee," Lady told her. "Be that warm, vivacious plain town girl who likes _almost_ everybody. Deal with the bad ones the best you can and if you can't, no shame." The smile turned into a grin. "You can't tell me that if that spackhead had done what he threatened, that the Captain and Zoe wouldn't have taken care both him _and_ who he works for in an appropriate way."

"That's for sure," Kaylee agreed with a roll of her eyes.

"Now," Lady nodded toward the bottom of the ramp. "Let's get that stuff aboard before we get yelled at for leaving consumables out in the sun."

They started back down, grabbed a handful of stuff and proceeded to take it into the Cargo Bay. As they passed back in through the doors, Kaylee asked in a quiet yet stubborn voice, "maybe you could teach me to be just a little bit tougher?"

There was a long pause before, ". . . we'll see."

* * *

They arrived at Beaumonde without trouble, landing at one of the factory complexes on the coast south adjacent to the planets capital New Dunsmuir. Offloading and squaring of accounts was simple and straightforward.

Luck was with them for there was a waiting load ready to be shipped across the system to Constance. A quick contract was made, the load was brought aboard and secured and they were back off again.

The view out of the front ports was that of the last vestiges of atmo fading away to The Black. Wash was flying with an easy hand; he could literally do this in his sleep. Which was about what he was doing because of the muttering emitting from him as his mind clearly on something else.

Zoe was on her perch/the panel behind him, arms crossed, a none-too-happy look on her face. Finally she said (in a tone a little tighter than she had intended), "give it a rest dear."

Her husband turned on her with an accusing look. "A rest is just what would have been nice. New Dunsmuir is considered a wonderful tourist spot. Would one day have been too much to ask?"

"And you would have paid for it how?" was her tart reply. "When's the last time that we had three back-to-back jobs without having to poke around five planets to find 'em."

"It wouldn't have cost us anything for an afternoon on the beach," her husband insisted. "I know that Mal wants to keep moving at the moment but at the same time a Captain should look out for the welfare of his men—"

"And you implyin that I haven't been?" Mal said with that certain drawl as he stepped onto the Bridge.

Zoe was instantly in that position of almost attention saying in an apologetic tone, "no sir, he wasn't implying that at all."

"While I wasn't implying that," Wash broke in, giving his wife a testy 'don't-speak/cover-for-me' look out of the side of his eyes, "what I was implying is that an occasional day off would be nice at a place that would be nice to have a nice day off."

Mal made a 'what' gesture with his hands, "you just spent three days coastin through space. I don't seem to recollect you doin much of anythin durin that time."

Wash . . . restrained what looked like an urge to come to his feet. He did not restrain the angry look in his eye. "It's not the same and you know it . . . sir!"

The 'sir' came as an equally angry look came into Mal's eye. That caused a very flat tone in the Captain's voice when he said, "just because we're gettin work right now don't mean that it'll stay that way. Kaylee says that there are things that'r gonna need fixin and 'cause I _think_ 'bout the welfare of my people, I don't ever want to take the chance of us runnin out of gas again. So that means if there's work, we work." He snapped a look at Zoe before saying again to Wash, "when we get this boat in for the new parts, then you can have your day off. Till then be happy that we got us a new cook that can cook."

Wash's face was subdued now that Mal had said his peace . . . that reduction in ire supported by just a little guilt on his part. They all knew how hard Kaylee worked to keep things running on basically nothing. Wash knew the feeling well; the reason being that he was the one who did the majority of the work on the flight control systems. Mal had always allowed him a 'bigger budget' due to the critical nature of having fully functional flight and navigational systems where Kaylee's real genius was improvising and getting the most out of marginal systems and equipment. Therefore Wash knew that he was 'blessed' with adequate resources whereas Kaylee—

Which meant that as far as this particular argument was concerned, there wasn't a whole lot of things that Wash could say and Mal knew it. The Pilot nodded a contrite acknowledgement to the Captain who accepted the nod with one of his own.

The Captain, not wanting to continue the 'strained' feeling on the Bridge then turned about and left without another word. Wash could feel the heat of his wife's eyes behind him. He swiveled the chair back around grumbling, "don't say it, I know this is what I signed on for." He shrugged as he added, "should have held out for at least one 'all-expenses-paid-luxury-vacation' package as a part of my contract."

Zoe snorted behind him. But it wasn't a harsh sound meaning that Wash knew that he was acting sorry enough to reduce much of his wife's unhappiness at him for getting into the argument with Mal in the first place. He continued to lower things to the next notch by saying, "alright, I should have held out for a contract then."

His wife reached out and gave him a light, 'thump' on the back of his head as her 'punishment' toward him . . . adding insult to the injury by telling Wash in a _very_ dry tone, "it's a good thing that I do the finances. If you had tried for a contract with Mal, you'd be paying him to do his flying."

"Details, details—" was all her husband said in reply.

* * *

After the 'little disagreement' with Wash, Mal was not in the best of moods as he headed down to the Cargo Bay. Encountering Inara on the forward ladder, she being on the way up didn't lighten it any . . . for she had 'that' look on her face. He beat her to the initial strike by, "no, I don't have any idea how long we will be stayin at Constance. If 'nother jobs available we'll be takin it."

"How can I make appointments," she began taking obvious pains to keep from raising her voice with him as she moved to the side of the ladder and he passed by her going down, "if we're jumping all over the place. Part of our agreement was that you gave me the time and opportunity to meet with my clients."

Mal turned to look back up at her, his mouth coming open impulsively to make some kind of a sarcastic comment regarding that she could pay a higher rent allowing him to get the parts that Kaylee had requested since she could just increase her own rates from those of a whore to those of a—

His mouth snapped closed on that comment. He ground it under his teeth until he was sure that it was completely crushed—

"Look," he said instead coming back up the couple of steps until he was just below her, eyes cast down, "I'm . . . nervous. I keep expectin someone like another Dobson to show up and start causing problems. That's why I'm movin us around so much." He took a deep breath before looking up into Inara's face. "What we could do is drop you off as we go by somethin, pick you up on the swing by later."

Inara looked down for a moment before she allowed a slight smile to come to her face. "That is a worthy compromise Captain, one that I will take you up on. I will let you know when and where you can accommodate me." the two of them stood, eyeing each other for another whole minute, tense words that 'might have' or 'could have' been said flowing through the air between them.

Then Mal nodded to the Companion before tuning and continuing down the ladder.

Inara stood watching him go before she turned and resumed her climb.

* * *

Inara almost bumped into the Shepherd as the two of them met at the turn in the forward companionway before the hatch into the Dining Area. The Shepherd jumped to the side with a, "my pardon."

Inara smiled at him. "Not to worry Shepherd, you would be the only one aboard with whom I might collide with without harm."

Book cocked his head in curiosity. "And why might that be?" he asked.

Inara's smile turned just the tiniest bit wicked, "is it not obvious Shepherd, Jayne would letch me if he could, Wash would assault my ears with some kind of pun or homey saying, Simon would turn ten shades of red and would flee like a frightened bird muttering apologies," she stopped and gave an elaborate shrug before, "the Captain would . . . make like nothing had happened—" She then looked back up at Book, giving him a genuine smile as she said, "you at least treat it as the accident that it was."

Book gave her a small bow. "My many thanks for your kind words. I do always try to . . . live as civilly as possible."

The Companion cocked her head, asking in a slightly challenging tone, "I do have to wonder if you were always this way?"

Book's face was . . . maddening bland. Only the slight spark in his eyes showed his reaction to her probing question. He merely gave her a smile that could only be described as 'oh-no-you-don't' before he replied, "walking forward on God's path does give time to reflect on where one has been . . . however . . . one must keep their focus on the road ahead. Reflection towards the works of the Lord is far more important in day-to-day life; dwelling on the past usually must be for reflecting on the lessons that were learned from what missteps you may have taken." He gave the Companion another small bow. "I am now as God has made me," followed by a warm smile with, "and that includes being civil and courteous to those fairer than I."

Inara raised one eyebrow eye, unable to resist asking, "including one who might be damned by her life of choice?"

Book's smile turned disarming. "As I said when I came aboard, I am travelling to learn, not to preach—"

"Even though," Inara teased him, "you admitted in that conversation that there would be some preaching."

Book shrugged, "a man has to earn his keep." There was a beat as the Shepherd's eyes grew dark, "unfortunately, much of my preaching on this voyage has been at funerals."

The Companion gave the Shepherd an understanding smile, nodded her head to him and moved past him into the Dining Area.

Book stood still for a few moments, thoughts crossing behind his eyes before he headed into the well for the ladder down to the Cargo Bay.

* * *

Book came down the short ladder into the Lounge and from there into the Infirmary doors. Simon looked up from the computer there.

Book handed back Simons encyclopedia saying, "here is the reference I was referring too."

Simon took the device and reviewed the information. After a moment he said, "but this is all just rumor, nothing definitive."

Book shook his head. "Speculation, conjecture, yes but if you take the analogy that things like legends have their origin in some obscure fact or seemingly unrelated event then you could see where I believe what we were discussing might come from."

Simon nodded in understanding, thinking for a moment before, "considering how much we as modern persons believe we know what is going on and yet those of us on this vessel with our. . . unique vision of current events, it is equally interesting to see what is not known or even hinted towards the general population." He shook his head in amazement before giving the Shepherd a lopsided smile, "but being that I was once one of those clueless masses I guess that I can't blame them." The smile became a sad shake, "there are times—" his voice trailing off.

"I know," the Shepherd said gently, "that the salvation of your sister makes up for what you have lost." He laid a hand on the Doctors shoulder, "we all regret many things in our lives, but it is the good things that we did or the bad things that we did not do that eases us in our regret."

There was a beep from Simon's left and he stepped over to one of his devices extracting from it a vial.

"How are your sister's treatments going?" Book asked as he watched the Doctor work.

"I think we're finally making some progress," Simons reply sounded a little distracted but he snapped on a lid and came around to face the Shepherd blowing out a breath. "Since our little adventure with our egotistically psychotic bounty hunter, she has been doing much better and what is more encouraging is that I think it's happening outside of my medicating her. That event seemed to have . . . reactivated a sense of cognitive awareness and discipline within her."

Then Simon reached over to take hold of and hold up a container—

"In addition, I'm going to start her today on a new medication. My hope is eventually that I can use it as a daily supplement in her food but I have to experiment with the dosages first." He set the container down, "hopefully someday she won't need anything like that."

Book gave a gentle nod, "yes, I we must hope—and I will also pray for that to come to pass. And," he gave the Doctor a smile, "I certainly do agree with you as far as recent events. She certainly did much better in that—as you said—'little adventure' than I did."

Simon eyed Book for a moment, the temptation on his lips to ask the Shepherd why the Bounty Hunter had specifically said that Book wasn't a Shepherd. But the moment passed. Simon gave the Shepherd a simple smile saying, "you were caught off guard. He took down the Captain; he probably would have taken Jayne down if they had encountered each other."

The two of them smiled faintly at each other for a moment before Simon looked down to pick up the vial he had been preparing. "Well, I need to get this to the person who wants it. If you'll excuse me." he started to walk past Book.

"Our mutual suspicion Doctor," Book asked quietly as the Doctor went past, "you do think it is best that we keep it to ourselves at this time?"

Simon hesitated a moment at the Infirmary door before saying back over his shoulder, "I do think that is best. I doubt that we will never be able to prove it and even if we did, what do you think that knowledge would do to The Verse at large?"

"Yes," Book nodded sagely. "I completely agree that the Verse will never be ready for the knowledge that any meat other than beef . . . will always 'taste like chicken'."

"Well said," Simon told him with a big grin as he breezily walked out toward the Lounge ladder.

* * *

Simon came into the rear of the Dining Area, heading over toward the table. Inara, who had apparently prepared a small meal for herself smiled at him before she turned, plate balanced easily in her hand, heading for the hatch behind the galley that would lead back down to her shuttle.

"You got my stuff?" came the gruff voice from the table.

"Ah, yes," Simon said focusing back on his 'patient'.

Jayne scooted the chair he was in away at an angle from the table. He started to unlace the top of one of his boots in order to pull the pants leg out of it. "Sure took ya long enough," he grumbled. "Bout scratched myself raw."

Indeed the Mercenaries lower leg was almost shredded and bleeding. Simon squatted down with the small container extended in his hand, "I see. As raw as this is . . . this _is_ going to hurt."

"Don't care if it burns my leg off," Jayne replied tightly. "Anythin better than all this—"

At that moment Simon sprayed the healent on the rash. Jayne's face reflected the pain but he took it without a sound.

"Now what causes this again?" Simon asked as he watched the medicated spray start to work on the rash.

"Don't know," Jayne said in reply. "Must have gotten into somethin that triggered it. Happened all the time when I was a kid. My Ma useta think that it's from when I would get upset or in trouble, I'd run out onto the prairie. She thought I'd pick up somethin out there from one of the plants, somethin that I was allergic too. Couldn't figure out thou why I didn't get it when I was doin jus regular old work out there. Or why it continued once I . . . got other work. Hasn't hit me in a couple of years now but it happened all the time with . . . some of the other outfits I worked with."

Simon only nodded. Jayne's explanation confirmed what his medical training told him but he also decided that discretion was the better part of valor so he would not tell the big Merc what his medical opinion was.

Which was that the Merc's rash was caused by mental anxiety and stress.

The Doctor liked what he saw in the way Jayne's skin reacted to the treatment. He sat stood back up and placed the spray container on the table. "That should help. May take a couple of more treatments so hang onto this."

"Much obliged," the Merc said as he started to tuck his pants leg back in. "Gotta catch it early. Couple of times it covered a good piece of me. That wasn't fun."

"No, I imagine that that wouldn't be," Simon said levelly although a part of him liked the idea of the Merc having at least temporarily, the screaming itches all over his body. That would be a delicious non-fatal revenge for some of the stuff Jayne had tried on him and his sister.

"Don't think," Jayne started as he bloused the pants and retied his boot, "that the cause of it couldn't be all this fancy grub we're getting right now?" There was a hopeful tone to Jayne's question.

"Unless you have a specific allergy," Simon said in his still very level tone, "which you would think should have appeared long before this . . . I wouldn't think so."

Jayne grunted something that sounded very uncomplimentary before adding, "well, thanks Doc, it seems to be workin already which will be a big load offa my mind. Gotten so bad that I was afraid that I wouldn't sleep."

"Glad I could be of service," Simon turned to head back down, "just be sure if it starts to scab over that you keep it clean—"

A look came to Jayne's face and he was up on his feet. "Thanks Doc, almost forgot that I had to do somethin, gorram scratchin took my mind offa everythin." He started to walk out past Simon—

"Ah . . . !" Simon's now pointed tone stopped and turned the Merc—

To see the Doctor holding the container of medication.

"Aw, thanks," Jayne said with a slightly sheepish grin, taking the container from Simon before turning back toward the aft passageway.

* * *

"Kaylee?" Jayne called as he came up on the Engineroom hatch.

"Yeah," came the called response from around the side of the main housing.

"Hey," Jayne called as he came around the side of the unit, stopping and blinking momentarily at the sight of the young mechanics butt. Kaylee was on her hands and knees with her posterior pointed directly back at the Merc—

Which made Jayne . . . feel uncomfortable. For all his prowess and success as a womanizer and his opinions on the place of women in society, the one exception to the rule was Kaylee. Although he would never admit it, he held what he called a 'real sisterly affection' for the Mechanic which, Jayne had never much admitted such as he had always teased and 'hard-timed' Kaylee. For a long period, she had been the only one he could harass in that manner; he couldn't do it to Mal or Zoe without risking his neck and he couldn't do it to Wash without it coming right back at him and Inara . . . well, he couldn't think of anything to do to her outside of—

But Kaylee being shot by that Fed when the Tam's had come aboard had caused Jayne to realizing feelings that he hadn't known he had. And the strangest of those was that his feelings for Kaylee were simply for her to be a little sister. He had no want or desire to rut her or anything like that. In fact . . . if it wasn't an alien concept to him . . . he would say to himself that he wanted to protect her even though he wasn't sure that she wouldn't want such protection—at least from him. He really didn't like or approve of Simon Tam for a number of reasons, but he did respect the man for several other reasons. If he was the kind that Kaylee wanted, Jayne would not interfere.

So he took a deep breath and shoved the sight out of his mind while looking across the compartment, "Mal wanted me to check to see if you got to mendin that key in the terminal in the forward passageway."

"Yeah," the young woman replied as she wormed her head out of the hole it had been in, pushing herself up onto her feet to turn and face the Merc. "I fixed it," her hands went to her hips and she gave Jayne an accusing look. "Seems there was a hunk of somethin that looked like sandwich spread stuck between the keys. About a messy fingers worth of sandwich spread."

"Ah . . . " Jayne felt the old 'deer in the landing lights' look come to his face. "Don't know what yer talkin bout," he said hastily.

"You know," the young Engineer advised sympathetically, "a scientist could probably follow your exact trail after lunch by electronically dating the deposits of spread around this boat." She sadly shook her head. "IF you'd wash your hands—"

"Oh," Jayne shook a finger as something else came to him. "That reminds me of somethin else. Is somethin goin on with the plumbing? My head don't flush as hard—

"And it's backin up," she finished for him with an even more intense stare. "There's another cabin in use now. First time that one's been on line. I also opened up the cross connection to equalize pressure on both sides so pressure is more even in the pipes. And if you didn't use an entire roll every time you—"

"I don't use a whole roll—" he protested weakly.

"That's what you said before I had to snake that entire roll out of the main dump valve three months ago," Kaylee stated with a more than strained smile.

"That . . . was different. Too much spicy food from that cantina—"

Kaylee shook her head, "whatever. Does it need to be plumbed again?"

"Yeah," the Merc said guiltily.

"Alright," Kaylee sighed. "I've just finished my post takeoff chores. I've got somethin else to do first but I'll get to it before dinner."

A big smile lit the Merc's face. "Thanks, I owe you." He gave her a nod then headed back out of the Engineroom.

Kaylee looked after him with a resigned smile on her face. She then looked up and around the Engineroom, placing a loving hand on one of the supports. "I know they mistreat you girl but we'll get through it all somehow."

_Serenity_ didn't speak back to the young woman . . . although Kaylee's ears could hear her voice regardless. That music to her ears told Kaylee that there were stiff joints and arthritis in the bones and a couple of pulled muscles plus just a _little_ indigestion—

But she was still flying.

* * *

"Okay Genius Girl, you gonna whup me again?"

Kaylee was coming down the forward ladder into the Cargo Bay. In their usual place on the deck to the starboard side was River setting them up for a game of jacks.

River smiled without looking up. "You've won your share."

"Yeah right," Kaylee exclaimed as she folded herself down onto the deck across from the other girl. "I've won like how many . . . five games?"

River continued to concentrate on her task. She did smile when she told Kaylee, "it's not my fault that your share is only three/point four three percent of the games we've played. I've told you that it's all a matter of—"

I know, I know," Kaylee said with gentle exasperation, "it's a simple matter of (she put on what she called her 'River face' and quoted) mentally computing the odds based on the number of jacks and their geometrical positioning on a two dimensional plane accounting for the projected elapse time of the ball traveling in both a third and fourth dimension."

"You've got it," River told the older girl with a smile. "Now just apply it."

"I say again . . . yeah right," was Kaylee's grinned reply.

The two girls played for some time, small talk keeping them busy.

Until—

"When are you going to do something about my brother?" River asked out of the clear blue.

Kaylee dropped the jacks in her hand. A not-too-convincing cough came to her, her hair falling into her eyes as she bent forward.

"A cough is a cough but a scoff should get off," River admonished.

Kaylee's head came up as one hand brushed her hair out of her eyes. "You just make that up?" she told the other girl only half in jest. The reality was that Kaylee wanted to glare at River but she also didn't want to trigger any kind of reaction—which as always gave River an undo advantage over her.

"Simon's just shy," River explained.

"Shy aint the word for it," Kaylee retorted with feeling. "He's downright scared it seems. The feelin's there you can tell but he don't know what to say, don't know how to say it . . . don't know _when_ to say it or even worse, when _not_ to say somethin stupid."

River said with a very firm certainty, "he has no experience."

Kaylee made a face. "Don't sound that way when he talks 'bout everythin he did in school. That sounded like lots of experience."

River was studying the jacks between the two of them intently even as she spoke. "There's a difference, between playing and caring. For a while he wasn't allowed to care, Father made him that way. He had to find—are you going to pick those up?"

Kaylee blinked, looking at where River's finger was pointing at her dropped jacks—

Kaylee also realized that she was blushing . . . she was flustered . . . she was . . .

"If he really cares," she asked in a plaintive tone as she moved to pick up her dropped jacks, "why is it so hard for him to let me know he is. It shouldn't take . . . 'experience' to show someone that you care about them."

"My fault," came River's soft words.

Kaylee's head came up, her eyes huge with the questions—

"He and I were pretty much inseparable," River continued in a 'grave' tone even as she inspected the jacks as if they were a laboratory specimen. "I know that we spent all of our time together. I think I kept him from having other friends, meeting other girls, having close friends, having girlfriends. From his letters that I remember, he found going off to the University, off to Medical School, to be frightening. Not from the leaving from home or the trails of his education . . . but from having to meet and deal with others."

River looked up and there was a curious look in her eyes. "He wrote once that he enjoyed working with patients . . . because they didn't expect him to be 'friendly'. Compassionate . . . but not friendly."

Rivers head dropped. "There is so much that I try not to remember—" her voice had gone hard, causing Kaylee to look at her warily. "But I remember his letters—he had no real friends—he was lonely."

River then looked back up—and the intensity of her look pieced Kaylee right through, that intensity that was frightening, that look that seemed to be staring right into Kaylee's mind—

River's voice was still hard—staccato, "he has no friends—the Captain talks down to him—the Mercenary plays tricks on him—the Shepherd humors him—the Pilot ignores him—no friends."

Then—River changed. Her face softened, her eyes got warm, her voice," . . . except you Kaylee. Why do you think he is so awkward? He can't tell funny stories about things that happened at his work even though there were funny things that happened. He can't step up for himself because he lacks self confidence—"

"But he'll stand up for you?" Kaylee was desperately trying to understand what River was telling her.

"Because he knows . . . I'm damaged," was Rivers so matter-as-fact reply. "That my reactions and perceptions are not always what they should be. That at times I am a danger to myself and others around me."

Then River . . . smiled. And a shiver went through Kaylee. For she had just all too recently seen the exact same smile on another woman—

The smile of a she-wolf—

"But I saw a time coming Kaylee . . . in a bright sunny day dream . . . of a place of close, cold darkness . . . when the two of you will finally throw aside all your barriers. It will be at a place where you . . . where all of us . . . all except the Pilot and the Captain . . . will be hiding behind barriers . . . waiting for doom to fall on us. You and my brother will find each other . . . and I will have the chance . . . to finally take care of my brother as he has always taken care of me."

Kaylee stared . . . as she had stared when River had taken out three of Niska's henchmen with three shots with eyes closed—

Kaylee believed.

At that moment, Simon came into view, "River—I have something new I'd like you to try—"

* * *

Lady sat cross-legged on her bunk staring down at the open book in her lap. The open mostly blank book in her lap.

Both the Doctor and the Shepherd had separately suggested that she start a 'journal' of memories and impressions. The consensus was that actually writing down such things might cause additional flashes and 'something' impressions which in turn might trigger more and on and on in an ever increasing cascade.

Of course, one of the first things to come to her was that she didn't keep journals.

Which in itself had an accompanying impression. It seemed to her that the reason why she wouldn't do something like that was actually because of 'security' considerations, ingrained habits caused by the constant watchfulness against enemy espionage or opposing force intelligence gathering. There also seemed to be a . . . deeper more personal reason . . . one she was very much unsure about . . . but it seemed—

Lady had come to the conclusion that like Captain Reynolds and River, much of her life held elements that she would just have rather left forgotten. She sensed huge voids of bitter loneliness and a 'blackness' that could only be deep depression running like a continuous thread through much of her life.

It had come to her that she had contemplated suicide at least once—possibly more.

Something else told her—that she had a . . . compulsion for something. Even now, sitting alone in the quiet of her cabin, a 'need' was tugging at her awareness. There was . . . something that she wanted. A 'something' that would 'shroud' her from the loneliness that she felt, something that would 'dull the pain' and 'buffer the emptiness' within her.

The draw was—powerful. Whatever it was—something told her that it had been both a comfort for her in her past life as well as a crutch and a handicap. What it was she didn't know. But she had come to comprehend that something—

In the end, she wasn't sure. Some little part of her told her that whatever it was—it was common and easy to get—probably available right on board _Serenity_ somewhere if she put her mind to finding it.

The thoughts didn't go beyond that—for she realized—that she was afraid to know just what it was that she craved. Something told her that whatever it was—it had come close to causing her ruin at one point in her life.

Whatever it was . . . she had come to understand that something within her was . . . denying . . . rejecting whatever it was. That in and of itself told her how much she feared it. Which she found very disquieting. The reason for that disquiet was that something else told her just how much she craved whatever it was when things got very black in her life.

Fortunately, things were not that black right now. She was making friends, getting to know those she was with, liking much of what she found.

Except—she was coming to realize—to remember about herself and her past life—so much of it seemed so—depressing.

Lady stared at the open book, feeling herself alone in the otherwise, bare and empty cabin. The 'stuff' that Kaylee had bought to 'decorate' the place were still sitting in the bags in the corner.

The memory came to her—'_a __cold __dark __pit __that __almost __swallowed __me_'.

It had come to Lady that she had spent much of her life in bare cabins alone—

It had come to her that she preferred it that way—because she hadn't deserved anything better.

It had come to her that there was a part of her life where she had hated herself—only her stubborn 'honor and integrity' had kept her going.

Those things all weighed heavily on her. That—and the fact that the nightmares were starting.

Somehow Lady knew—due to the fact that she was settling into her new situation, becoming accustomed to her surroundings, managing to relax her guard and lower her shields to a certain degree—

Nightmares; and when there was no nightmares—insomnia.

The nightmares—some of them were old, very old if she could believe the ages she appeared to 'feel' that she was in them—all of them clearly first person experiences that she had survived—all of them gut-wrenching in their own way.

With the appearance and increasing frequency of the nightmares—she was finding that if she wasn't physically exhausted that she would not sleep. It made her wonder if she didn't want to sleep for fear of her dreams. It seemed to be an 'either/or' type of thing with the nightmares as the 'either' and the insomnia as the 'or'. It made her wonder—did she unconsciously embrace the insomnia to escape the nightmares? Was that the reason why that when she did sleep she found that she generally needed only three or four hours a night? In response to that, she had started a program meant to 'tire herself out' enough in order to at least attempt sleep.

And whatever it was that she craved—she was coming to the conclusion that it was what she had long used to get through both the insomnia and the nightmares. Even if whatever it was also caused other problems within her life.

Those where the kinds of things she was remembering.

What she couldn't remember—and it brought silent tears to her eyes—was the last years of her life. She couldn't remember—but she _knew_ that it had all changed—that she was loving life and living a life that excited and satisfied her. She _knew_ that her recent life had allowed her to shake off the . . . addiction? . . . of whatever it was she was craving. She could sleep the night away. She had been happy; she had been in—_love_—?

But she _couldn__'__t_ remember—

Except that _she_ had run away from it—

There was a 'plop' sound as the tears fell from her eyes onto the open pages of the book.


	16. Concern

Chapter Sixteen – Concern

* * *

". . . well . . . it was nice while it lasted."

"I suppose so sir."

Mal and Zoe stood side by side at the top of the ramp looking out at all the other ships filling the docks of Hastur, the moon of Beaumonde. They had had a good run for several weeks until an influx of ships responding to the word on the Cortex that there was work aplenty in the Kalidasa sector came along and ruined things. Most of the jobs now went to the newer, safer, larger ships which had cargo insurance or the real old small deathtraps that were willing to change next to nothing for work.

"At least we got paid a few times," Mal went on. "There's enough to keep us in consumables for a while and enough left over to get some of the work that Kaylee was constantly talkin 'bout takin care of."

"Kaylee's only doin her job sir," Zoe admonished gently.

"I suppose," Mal admitted. "One must get tired of workin miracles all the time." He glanced down at his time piece. "How long is that crowd gonna be gone?"

Zoe looked sideways at her Captain, "you in a hurry sir?"

Mal shrugged. "Not really. Just that any time it seems that Simon and River go off they get mixed up in somethin."

Zoe shrugged it off. "Been a while since that last happened. Simon's smarter now 'bout keepin an eye about him."

"Bout time that boy learned somethin useful out here," was Mal's under-his-breath reply.

Zoe refrained from making any kind of comment. She was happy that Simon seemed to be getting more adjusted to reality. God knew that the man had enough other things on his plate—such as his sister.

Over the last couple of weeks, River had been . . . a little different. Almost the entire first week of the period, she had been somewhat lethargic—not just her normal 'out-of-it' periods—it was like she had been physically very tired. Simon had mumbled something about a 'new medication', Zoe accepting this as an explanation.

The previous week, the one they had just ended had been a little different, periods of the lethargy—then suddenly River seemed back to her old self. Zoe could tell that Simon was—perplexed by whatever was happening. As a result, he had been spending quite a bit of time in the Infirmary apparently trying to figure out just what was going on with his sister and the new medication.

So Zoe was actually 'happy' for him that they had come to a place where he could get out and get some air—in this case with his sister rather than Kaylee—

Of course, part of _that_ might have been because the Engineer had had other plans.

Speaking of which—

Zoe, drawing Mal's attention, nodded over toward the edge of the 'city' surrounding the docks, saying as she did so, "here comes part of your 'crowd'."

Mal looked toward the opening into a 'boulevard' three docks down to their right. His features scrunched up when he saw, "just how many bags they got there? They buy out a store or somethin?"

Zoe smiled as she saw," well, apparently they found somethin else by the looks of things."

Then Mal actually 'looked' and saw what Zoe saw . . . and his eyes bugged out a little, his mouth—

"Best close your mouth before a horsefly thinks it's a landin pad—sir," Zoe advised her Captain.

What it was that they were seeing was a group of three; Inara was on one side, Kaylee was on the other—

Lady was in the middle—

Gone were the practical but essentially shapeless coveralls that had been her primary set of clothing since joining the crew. The sets of britches and blouses that Inara and Kaylee had chosen for her on Salisbury had been worn a couple of times when Lady had assisted Wash in getting consumables at several of their stops but it had been obvious that Lady hadn't felt comfortable in them.

But what she was wearing now—

"That's a man's vest," Zoe said softly nodding her head in understanding. "Makes sense, tall man's size be the only thing that would cover that long upper body of hers."

But the thing was . . . the dark brown plain leather vest was the only thing that Lady was wearing on her upper body. Zoe had long ago guessed that Lady had a dislike of anything with sleeves. Be it the coveralls or the blouses, Lady had always rolled the sleeves up as far as humanly possible. As the vest didn't have sleeves at all, that problem was apparently solved. But being that it was a man's vest, the front of it was cut low to accommodate a tie or ascot . . . which in Lady's case meant that there was a whole lot of cleavage showing. The tight leather vest also more than accented her bust and long slender waist.

The pants didn't help either. For they were also leather, a well fitting boot-cut rather than tight and clinging. You could tell that Lady could move in them without hindrance. The whole thing showed both Lady's height and athletic body more than was good for most men. When the long, straight, thick fall of dark brown hair was seen swirling behind her reaching down to her knees, it just might be more than any man could stand.

Zoe watched Mal's reaction and gauged her own feelings. She knew that it was the first time that Mal had ever really seen just what a 'package' Lady was so she could understand his reaction. As for herself, Zoe was just a little bit tempted to feel a tiny bit of female envy—

But that was lost almost immediately. She had seen Lady in the shower after her release from the Infirmary when Lady had first been helped out by Inara—but that wasn't the issue. What was the issue had come to Zoe only recently—the result of a couple of things that had occurred in the last couple of weeks—things that had clarified for Zoe just what type of woman Lady was.

Zoe had been up late one evening verifying the Captain's Log's in case of any Alliance inspection and working on the crews 'pay schedule' (a totally fictitious document to be sure) as they carried a load of cattle across the sector. It had been about ships midnight when she had finished so she had decided to check on the beasts before she joined Wash in their cabin. The cattle were fine. Maybe it was because they had something to hold their attention. That something was Lady.

From the vantage point of the companionway hatch at the top of the forward ladder, Zoe watched as Lady literally climbed the wall of the Cargo Bay ahead of Zoe, going up from the catwalk. Lady then worked her way across to the far wall clinging to the ceiling like a spider (long pony tail dangling from the back of her head), working hand over hand over leg over foot, using her hands, feet, legs, whatever, to reach and grab structural beans, pipes, whatever she could that would help her make her way over the cattle pens below her. Lady was puffing with exertion, the skin of her face and exposed arms where shiny with sweat, the muscles on those arms buffed and sculptured from their exertion—

But Lady continued to go without a slackening in speed or determination. When Zoe had last seen her, she had worked her way down the other side of the Bay—going up/over/under the side catwalks like a gymnast on bars—to the top of some cargo containers. From there she had leapt, leapfrog-like across several stacks of crates to the main gangway. From _there_ she had started to climb back up—doing so on the _back __underside_ of the gangway, going up while hanging under/behind those stairs, reaching up and pulling herself up them one at a time. Zoe realized that what she thought Lady was doing was making circuits of the bay while never once touching the deck.

It had been an impressive show of strength, stamina and agility, worthy of any major class of athlete. It certainly confirmed Simon's guess that despite gender and weight differences, pound for pound, Lady was probably as strong as Jayne.

The other incident had been several nights later after they had delivered the cattle. They were empty but in route to pick up a load for return to Verbena. Zoe had been up again doing her turn on Bridge watch (something they only did when they were 'being good' or the traffic in the area was exceptionally heavy, both qualifications being currently present). Her husband just relieved her for his all-nighter. Out of curiosity, she had once again poked her head into the Cargo Bay . . . where she saw Lady doing what appeared to be sprinting speed drills from the Bay doors to the gangway and back, repeating the sprints over and over again, her face a sweaty mask of concentration as she zipped back and forth from doors to gangway. Zoe had then gone to the Galley for a snack, preparing and delivering a small bite for her husband to munch on later before heading to their cabin. She had then gone to take a shower in the crews head . . . where she found Lady under the water.

"Oh," Zoe managed, a little taken aback for she was not use to having another 'female' crew to share the facilities with. Kaylee normally showered in the morning to assist in waking up (unless she had been involved in some _real_ dirty job—then she would do so before dinner) so there was no conflict as far as use of the shower between the Engineer and the First Mate. Zoe had assumed that Lady also showered in the morning. The reason for this assumption was that she had seen Lady several times with still-wet hair very early in the morning when Zoe, working Bridge watch those mornings, had been in the Dining area getting coffee when Lady had arrived to start preparing breakfast.

But now Zoe realized that if Lady was working out in the late evening as the First Mate had seen on two occasions—considering how sweaty Lady had been in both those instances, Zoe believed that someone as fastidious as Lady would never go to her bunk 'soiled and wet' like that. It had to mean that Lady was at least occasionally showering in both the morning and the evening which meant . . . well . . . nothing. Such an action wasn't an issue being that _Serenity_ totally recycled all water on board but—it still left open the small mystery of why would Lady have to shower twice a day and if she did—at least from—'Zoe-as-a-woman-point-of-view'—how could Lady do so without all that long hair turning into a frizzed mess.

After that little moment of surprise, Zoe managed to instantly put that surprise and the accompanying hesitation behind her. She figured that if Lady was ex-military, the woman should have no qualms about being caught in the shower—

Which appeared to be perfectly true. "Not a problem," Lady had said though the water for she appeared to just be finishing rinsing her hair. "I'm not picky about company." With that, Lady shut off the water, gathering her hair up into a tail which she whipped about into a rope in order to start squeezing the water out of it.

"I know what you've said about being military," Zoe asked, realizing that she was fishing for info but— "even so, I know that some people still prefer privacy—they especially prefer it after they've left that kind of experience."

Lady's head turned toward her allowing Zoe to see that Lady was concentrating in trying to pull out some kind of memory.

"I know what you're saying," she said in a 'musing' kind of way. "But something tells me that I started doing the communal shower thing early in my life—" her face folded in thought. "Like I told you before, the impression I get is that I was in martial arts training by eight or nine years of age—and something tells me that I was in military type training in my very early teens—which included communal facilities." She kind of shrugged. "Something else tells me that they were shared-gender as well so I would assume that nothing should bother me." She looked at Zoe asking, "so if it's okay with you—"

Then something seemed to occur to Lady as she looked at Zoe, asking in a slightly worried tone, "did I do something—is this a period reserved for you?"

Zoe shook it off with a, "not a problem."

Lady gave her a smile then went back to work at getting the water out of her hair—

"Can I ask a question?"

Lady looked up and after a moment nodded.

"What do you think of the way you look?"

There was no hesitation . . . and a smile when Lady simply said, "I look the way that—depending on your mode of belief—God, Fate or chance made me." The smile then became a grin as Lady added, "helped out of course by an insanely suicidal death wish when it comes to exercise and keeping in training." She then finished with her hair and waved Zoe into the shower as she moved to take her towel to the rest of her body, completely unconcerned that her unprotected back was now to Zoe who could only shake her head in amazement knowing now that Lady had been perfectly aware that the First Mate had 'spied' on her during those two workouts.

At that point, Lady had waved at her as she started to go out of the shower with her towel wrapped around her. Zoe called, "sleep well," after her—which caused Lady to stop, Zoe being a little shocked at the reaction.

"What's the matter?" the First Mate had asked.

Lady's reply was kind of a grim look and a grumbled, "yeah, let's hope that I'm tired enough to sleep."

Zoe had been left wondering if Lady was having trouble sleeping but beyond that, those incidents that made Zoe realize that Lady was one of those women who, above and beyond any 'complacency' caused by a life in mixed armed forces, was completely confident and comfortable in themselves and their body image. That seemed to match with the incredulous statement that Lady had made about Zoe's observations about Lady being 'beautiful' during their prior discussion about Jayne. The feeling Zoe had now was that Lady was an athlete who knew her body, knew it without any thoughts or feelings of vanity or overt awareness of its beauty, one who took pride in her body's abilities rather than her looks. For Zoe that mental image did _not_ fit in with the continuing opinion of some that Lady was from one of the High Families of Dyton.

The same feeling came to Zoe now as she watched with Mal as the three women from _Serenity_ approached the bottom of the ramp. _In __fact_ Zoe thought to herself, _Lady __actually __looks __to __be __more __comfortable . . . __and __I __want __to __say . . . __natural __in __that __outfit. __It__'__s __like __it__'__s __a __style __she__'__s __worn __for __a __long __time __that __fits __her __like __an __old __well-used __set. __She __doesn__'__t __seem __to __be __noticing __that __every __man __in __sight __has __their __eye __on __her . . . __or __that __she __would __care __if __she __was __aware __of __it._

"Am I gonna have to charge all of you for extra baggage over the limit?" Mal called out as the three of them reached the bottom of the ramp.

"Most of it is mine," Inara called up. "Found some great bolts of fabric that I can send back to the Training House."

"I got me some pretties as well," Kaylee piped up putting her bags down and pulling something out of one of them that looked . . . pretty. Kaylee then turned to Lady, waving her hands up and down before the bigger women, "and whatda think of this huh?"

Mal folded his arms and said with a harsh tone, "looks to me as if she's signin on with Inara as an apprentice whore."

Those at the bottom of the ramp rocked back as if stunned. Anger immediately came to Inara and Kaylee—Lady's features just went cool as the mask dropped into place.

Mal went on as if he hadn't seen any of this. "She might wanna rethink her looks and how much trouble they're gonna cause her. She might also wanna rethink them 'cause I don't want one of my crew bein called a whore and I don't wanna have a part of any trouble bein stirred up by such a thing."

A shocked silence lasted maybe five seconds.

Then Lady dropped her head in submission, saying loud enough for all to hear, "my apologies sir. I did not think through what I was doing. I bought other items that should be more appropriate. I will change at once."

"You'll do no such thing," Inara ordered, reaching out to place a restraining hand on Lady even as her eyes burned up at Mal. "You weren't there to hear Lady when we found these. But she could remember dressing like this from wherever she is from—"

"Oh, she remember that she's from a whorehouse?" Mal asked, his tone showing that he was digging in for the fight.

"Captain?" Kaylee managed to convey her shock and disbelief. "There are people out in the Verse that didn't grow up on a horse ranch."

"Yeah?" Mal shot back with a pointed finger. "Well it seems to me that I saw outfits like her on ranches . . . all worn by hard workin cowboys—sorry folks but she don't strike me as a cowboy—and all of them had a lot more on then what's she's got on right now!"

"Sir—?" Zoe started.

Mal waved an angry hand. "End of discussion! Unless Lady says she's never gonna leave the boat she ain't goin into any town dressed like that."

"Since when did she become your teenage daughter?" Inara challenged, clearly getting beyond angry.

"Enough!" Lady called, bringing them all to a halt with that tone of _command_!

She waited just a beat when she was sure that they were all looking at her. She then continued in that same tone, "the Captain has a very valid point. It's one that I did not consider and I can see now where it would cause problems. As I have said before—I do not know the rules around here. Maybe once I learn them, things could be different. But until then—I'm sure that the Captain has my best interests at heart considering my current . . . handicap. And it is his ship . . . and I am currently his crew. He has his say and I will abide." She then gave a respectful nod toward Mal saying to him, "by your leave sir," at which time she walked up the ramp past Zoe and Mal to the forward ladder to the upper catwalk and from there into into the forward companionway where she climbed out of sight.

Mal brought his head down from following Lady up the ladder. As he did so Inara and Kaylee stormed past him, Kaylee giving him a burning look, Inara intentionally _not_ looking at him. He stood staring out at the town without seeing anything until the sounds of the two royally angry women faded into Inara's shuttle. He then glanced at his First Mate.

"Why am I always the one who's wrong?" he asked in a sharp tone.

Zoe shook her head, saying in a low tone, "no sir, you're actually right. You sometimes just pick the wrong times and the wrong way to get your things across. We all know by now that Lady is probably _somebody__'__s_ ex-military—God knows whose—in which case you should have . . . counseled her as a member of your crew one-on-one instead of out in front of God and everybody. You were made non-com on the front lines—you were never really in a peacetime setting where you would have learned how to be a little more—circumspect and discrete in the management of your people. Also Inara and Kaylee were never military—"

"Yeah, yeah," Mal grumbled. He looked back out into the town again, his features fuming but with a trace of just maybe guilt coming in.

* * *

A metallic 'knock' rang through the small compartment. Lady's voice rang out, "one moment."

She had been folding the leather pants to be placed into a drawer in the small closet her compartment was equipped with. She set those down and took up the set of denim jeans she had bought in the same store shrugging onto them. She was already wearing one of the white blouses that Inara had gotten her so in moments she was able to call, "come ahead."

The upper ladder panel opened and a foot hit the lower ladder. One of Lady's eyebrows cocked up as she recognized the leg. The eyebrow stayed up as Inara came down the ladder, her grace even in that kind of action and place was a pleasure to the eye. As soon as the Companion hit the floor, a second foot was on the ladder. This caused Lady to lean back against the bulkhead, folding her arms under her breasts in order to await the conversation which was about to occur.

Inara kept her eyes on Lady; not because she was scared or worried but because she was trying to understand the woman's actions and motivations. For one of such obvious strength, drive and self-possession, Inara found the woman's docile reaction to Mal's edict to be an inconsistent anomaly with the way the woman should have reacted. Inara _liked_ Lady and did not wish her to be submissive to any man.

Especially when the man in question was Mal Reynolds.

Kaylee came down the ladder slowly, again not with fear but with discomfort. This whole thing was Inara's idea and Kaylee was here reluctantly. She felt for Lady and was angry at the Captain but she did not want Mal mad at her for butting her nose in where it probably didn't belong. She had always been taught that an argument was private between those involved even if it occurred in public before witnesses. Those witnesses, while they couldn't pretend that the argument had never happened were suppose to keep their opinions to themselves and their mouths shut.

Lady was looking at both women with a certain expectation, clearly not happy about their presence but also not avoiding them.

"Why?" was all Inara asked as Kaylee came down onto the floor, staying close to the ladder as if it would protect her from something unknown. The Engineer took a moment to look around—realized with kind of a hurt shock that all the stuff she and Inara had bought for Lady to put out in the cabin was still apparently in the bags against the near wall.

"Because he's the Captain," was Lady's simple answer to Inara's single word question. Kaylee brought her attention back to the other two as they squared off, a heated-faced Companion against an emotionless Amazon.

"But why?" Inara went on. "Why does his being the Captain have anything to do with such treatment? You stood up to the Captain in the Dining Area. You stood up to Jayne at the same time—almost made him lose his bladder. How can you allow the Captain to dictate what you wear—the way you reacted when you saw yourself in the mirror—it was as if you found a part of yourself."

"I think I did," Lady said just as simply as before. "And as I told the Captain outside, I didn't think about what I was doing in how it effects my current environment." Lady waved her arm in a grand sweep about indicting the world outside of her cabin. "Because of his statement, I came to realize that . . . I was the only one dressed as I was. And looking at most of the societies that you have so far presented to me, I can see the way I was dressed as being potentially very disruptive."

"But that's not the point!" Inara insisted.

"But it is," Lady countered firmly. "Yes, dressing as I did helped me remember something about myself . . . and that is enough for me at this time. Now I have to adapt to the conditions I am in."

"But—" Kaylee hesitated, not really wanting to get involved in the conversation but needing to say what had come to her mind. "But what about . . . bein yourself? What about—what you said about _always_ bein yourself?" The young woman kind of cringed as she said it, afraid of insult or invoking anger.

But Lady smiled, the emotionless façade dropping—a smile unlike any either of them had seen on the woman's face before. It was as if Lady was showing the two of them her 'true' self—showing what a mockery all of her prior 'smiles' had been. "I am always myself Kaylee," was the gentle reply. "The way I dress is a part of myself but it does not make me who or what I am. Something tells me that I have worn many styles, many guises over many years. What was worn today . . . invokes memories of a—a manner of dress that was very important to me, something . . . like a uniform . . . a badge of honor, a symbol of what I am. At the same time, I also received the impression that what I wore today was also something similar to garments that I wore for recreation, some kind of protective gear for a . . . sport I participated in; I had a flash of some kind of two-wheeled vehicle—" Lady had to break off and shake her head with a rueful smile. "It is as confusing to me as it is to you. Maybe more will come later."

"But you are still allowing the Captain to dictate to you," Inara repeated with some heat. "Yes, even I have never seen many women in a style of dress such as that outside of some of the more . . . unusual Temples. I personally care not for that type of joining but I respect my fellow Companions who engage in that style for the service they perform for their clients." Inara was clearly thinking now, finally calming down as she did so allowing other thoughts to come to her. "There are also some women," she went on, "of the more . . . liberal social groups who also might dress in similar styles at premieres and functions within those same liberal groups."

Lady cocked her head in question, eyes narrowed as she tried to match what Inara had just said against what Lady was trying to reconcile with the term 'companion'. "The way you phrase that," Lady replied in a tentative way, "seems to indicate that the manner of dress regarding those you just spoke of would not be welcome among other groups or perhaps society in general."

"That . . . could be a bit of an understatement," Inara admitted reluctantly.

Lady processed this for a moment . . . then she shrugged. "Anyway, the base fact is that as far as I can tell, the Captain was right regarding the main point. And that point is that I have not seen . . . anywhere I have yet been . . . a single male or female attired in anything close to what I was wearing earlier." She gave kind if a lopsided smile. "Not even any of the Captains 'cowboys'. And that includes all of the planets and moons this ship has introduced me to so far." Lady's head then cocked the other way as she said, "and considering my unknown status here, it would be best if I fit in as much as possible with the background scenery would it not?"

Both Inara and Kaylee had to reluctantly nod at that.

Lady then dropped her head slightly, her dark eyes reinforcing her firm voice, "and as far as the Captain is concerned Inara, he has every right to say what he said and to enforce whatever rules he wants on the conduct of his crew. I recognize that, I agreed to that and I will abide by that."

"He coulda been nicer about it," Kaylee groused.

After a moment's hesitation, Lady nodded. "It would not have been my way to address the issue if our positions had been reversed but—" now it was Lady's turn to sound reluctant, "but I get the impression that the Captain is for reasons of his own, a harder man that he really has to be." Another moment's hesitation before, "and I get the impression that his behavior and reactions are the result of something in his past."

Inara looked at Lady for a long moment gauging the mysterious woman's feelings at that moment—looking at her own feelings at the same time—before she sadly nodded her head in affirmation saying, "Mal . . . was damaged by the war."

Lady had already figure this out on her own some time before. But she gave a nod as if what Inara had said had confirmed her suspicions. "But he goes on," Lady said. "And he tries to carry those he feels responsible for along with him. I can find no fault in a man like that," and at that, Lady's eyes went . . . 'distant' . . . and her voice said softly as if speaking the memory aloud, "and I was there once. Angry, defeated, in pain in my soul—"

Kaylee's heart was in her mouth . . . but she couldn't stop herself from saying, "then—you did fight in the war?"

Lady's eyes were seeing—searching—for something that wasn't in the room. But she said in that same soft tone, "I've known many wars child. Some I won, others I lost, but the war that almost destroyed me was the war within myself. The war between what I was and what I had always dreamed of being."

Lady's eyes . . . came back. She blinked—looking as if she had managed to startle herself but just as quickly she controlled her emotions. After a moment to get her face set, she looked at the two women before her saying, "I have no memory of your . . . Unification War." She shook her head in wonder before she continued, "that is another reason why I know I am from someplace else."

Both Inara and Kaylee looked uncomfortable. Neither one of them could grasp the concept of anything outside of The Verse, Inara because the training of a Companion had included extensive history of the migration from Earth-that-Was, Kaylee because—there just couldn't be anything else out there because everyone said there couldn't be anything else out there.

"Fine," Inara said to get the conversation going again. "You have good reasons for following Mal's orders. But _I_ cannot stand the thought of brand new clothes sitting in a drawer unused. Therefore I purpose . . . a compromise."

* * *

Mal came up the forward companionway that evening headed for the Dining Area for dinner. He'd spent the afternoon out looking for work knowing that he probably wouldn't find any but wanting to get away from the angry feel of the boat. He was bracing himself for the wall of cold shoulder he expected to find from the only people he felt comfortable with. He did not make any excuse for his behavior; he never would for it was what he was now. But it didn't stop him from sometimes regretting the things he had to do.

He didn't blame Lady for not knowing how out of place her outfit had been. Mal had been convinced long before that her memory being gone was not an act. It was real slow coming back to her; it was obvious that some of the things coming back were good, others were not so good and he felt a bit bad for having to step so hard on something that apparently had been a good memory but it had to be done.

He'd also been . . . taken aback by Lady. For all he had said and despite the outrageousness of her outfit (to him) Lady had not really (despite what he had said at the time), strike him as looking like a whore. But others, especially the more 'conservative' men out there would look on her that way. Worse than that though, were the others, the ones who would find the look given off by her appearance to be—

Lady—she had looked—like a very dangerous person. Worse that than, a very dangerous person who was also a woman. Not a worn battleaxe of a woman like all the Matriarchs he knew of out on The Boarder or The Rim—one of which had once put a bullet into him but—

In a lot of The Verse—a woman who looked that dangerous and capable just might be a bigger magnet for trouble that one who looked like a whore. For whores were all over the Verse in one form or another. Dangerous women were not. Those that were were like Zoe, not plain but certainly not what Lady had shown off.

Mal did have to wonder. By both her appearance and the way she had looked and acted before he dropped his bomb, Lady truly had looked . . . comfortable and—there was no other way to put it—but she had just looked 'right' dressed that way. That left Mal mystified and feeling a little unsophisticated for he knew of nowhere in The Verse where the women dressed like that without being whores.

But that gave Mal other thoughts that he didn't really want to think about. The Verse was BIG to him which was what he wanted, what he needed, plenty of open sky for him to get lost in. But parts of it could also be too complex for him. He liked simple, he needed the plain basics and nothing else to sooth the gaping raw wounds within him. The growing evidence coming from just the things that Lady did and talked easily about . . . reinforced by her insistence that she was 'from somewhere else' was unsettling to him in the least.

Then—there was the other reason—

Mal's inner self knew his latest . . . display had been in part a dig at Inara rather than Lady. It was something that he always did and Inara used to take it and give it back as well. But since her . . . decision . . . things were different. They were both . . . hesitant in engaging each other . . . and things that use to be simply turned around and thrown back, now they hurt. Mal didn't understand why Inara was still on the boat. He wished the reason was—but he knew that it couldn't be him—it had to be something else—in fact Inara had inferred that Lady was the reason why she was still aboard—

Mal's brow furled as he came to the top of the ladder. He was surprised to hear a full blown conversation going on in the Dining Area. He felt a little more guilt creep into him for he expected that conversation to come to a big screaming halt when he walked in and that made him feel—

But it was his boat, he knew that what he had done had been the right thing—even Zoe had said so—but as he had said to Lady, he really wasn't a people person. Now he had to face his people. So he stepped in.

And stopped. Everyone was seated at the table except for Lady who was still in the process of bringing the food over from the galley. She—she was now wearing a well fitting pair of denim jeans that showed her lower half just as well as the leather pants had but at least the denim looked _natural_ rather than threatening.

She was still wearing the vest. But under it was one of the blouses that Inara had gotten her. A blouse that had had the sleeves and the collar removed from it. The front of it was buttoned only part way up allowing just a bit of cleavage to show but the overall effect was much more . . . womanly.

"Dinner is served sir," Lady said in a busy tone without looking at him. "This needs to be eaten while it's still hot. If you allow the gravy to congeal you are committing a capital crime against the cook and I _will_ demand satisfaction at twenty paces with pistols."

Everyone at the table was looking at him but Mal's eyes were on Kaylee and Inara. There was apprehension in both sets of eyes but there was also hope that he would—

"Then a guess that I best get my bee-hind parked," Mal said 'sliding' across to his chair. "For while I might be willin to take a chance on the twenty paces with pistols thing, as long as it is pistols and not swords, the one thing that was always impressed on me by the highest authorities was never, _never_ upset the cook." He then shrugged and gave a 'knowing' look at Inara. "Although, the last time I used a sword in a fight everything came out okay. Took that dandy down real good." He kind for preened for a moment as he added, "real knightly of me if I do say so myself."

Inara—and just about everyone else rolled their eyes.

Lady saw the eye rolling . . . then looked at the Captain sideways, an 'evil' look on her face as she told him, "well, that just might be an interesting exercise sir. If you wish for swords, so be it. But my conscious compels me to inform you that something tells me that I've been extensively trained in twelve types of edged weapons including swords, rapiers and cutlasses."

Mal froze for a moment—then he carefully nodded—while everyone else smirked.

* * *

On the planet Londinium, far away from the base of power that was the Alliance Parliament was the true seat of power. In a chamber built into the very roots of the largest mountain on the planet, those who held the true authority over The Verse regularly met in their Star Chamber to decide the fate of those who opposed True Law and Order.

Their meetings were always filled with anger and confrontation, for The Five at the points of the Star neither liked nor trusted one another. But they were the heads of their respective factions and through those factions, wielders of Power, Influence, Authority, Money and Commerce controlled the fate of the billions under their sway. They rarely came to a unanimous conclusion or decision and the fighting between them could get fierce and bloody. The losers in a decision often retaliated in some fashion against the winners only to come around a month later and align with that 'enemy' against others within the Star. They needed each other; for one couldn't exist without at least assistance from the rest, but the friction and distrust was eternal and there was little likelihood that that would ever change.

Today was no different.

"Once again Authority has botched the job," Power (The Bureaucrats) declared. "We stripped The Boarder and some of The Core down to the bare bones to give Authority 'what they said they needed to get the job done' and _still_ they failed. The most massive deployment of ships since the War and they still could not cleanly intercept a single small ship even when they had it completely contained."

"As I've said so many times that I'm tired of saying it," Authority (Military/Enforcement/Judicial) lamented in a very sarcastic tone, "'failure' implies that all options have been explored and exhausted or that the ultimate outcome will never be known. Neither is the case here. The only 'failure' involved was that we were hindered in the deployment of the actual personnel _we_ needed to affect a quick and immediate end to this problem."

"Your orders were simple and straightforward enough," said Influence (Politics) with an annoyed tone. "You were given permission to use whatever you thought necessary to search for and find a small vessel attempting to make its way through the _Qing __Long_ system. A massive Level Five deployment augmented with multiple Level Four personnel and vessels to give an additional rapid response when needed. It was deemed that the use of Level Three personnel for the saturation of the _Qing __Long_ sector would have been overkill, a gross misuse of resources."

"I quite agree," Money (Banks/Lenders) chimed in. "The saturation by Level Five forces, those being standard Alliance Naval Units, backed up and augmented by Level Four Federal Marshalls and patrol ships was both efficient and cost effective. It succeeded in finding and bringing down the ship in question. The failure there gentlemen was that Authority did not allow the Level Four personnel to immediately land and examine the remains to confirm the presence of . . . the Person of Interest in order to ascertain their survival or demise."

"I was _NOT_ about to commit my personnel to their destruction," Authority said with an ugly growl, _glaring_ at Commerce with the look of murder. "As Level Four they do not have the security clearance for this kind of operation and we all know what happened the _LAST_ time something of this nature occurred."

Commerce (Business/Commercial) as usual had no expression on their face. Only the cold, calculating gleam in the eyes told that it was even interested in the conversation. When Commerce spoke, the voice was smooth, almost oily . . . and equally cold. "Level Four personnel are expendable in matters of Security. In the incident you refer to, they went far out of their authority—"

"They were following Standard Federal Arrest and Detainment Rules!" Authority thundered. "There was nothing in the either the Arrest Warrant or the Wanted Persons Bulletin stating that the Tam siblings were not to be processed as anything other than normal fugitives." Authority pointed an angry finger at Commerce, his voice shaking, "over a dozen, diligent, hard working officers of my Authority were _murdered_ in cold blood by your Blue Glove monsters."

Commerce looked at Authority as if he was a mentally deficient child, saying with no emotion in his voice, "the Tam's have Level One security attached to their file. Anyone who thought things through would know in advance that their being handled by Level Four personnel would immediately result in . . . a cleansing of those personnel. As would the fact that a Level One classification would never be listed in a Warrant or WPB as that would draw unwanted attention to those being sought." Commerce gave Authority a cold smile, "Your own statement about not 'committing my personnel to their destruction' shows the fatal weakness of your faction. Authority does not, nor has it even had the intestinal fortitude to commit to such sacrifices when they are needed. This is an inherent weakness in Authority. Far too much 'concern' for your personnel and their morale." The gleam in Commerce's eye got even greater as he added, "that is one reason why it took you so long to crush the Independents. For all its militaristic bluster, Authority had never had enough ruthlessness."

"We're off the subject," Power stated, intervening in the old argument before it got any further. "The fact of the matter is that it took too long for a ship with Level Three personnel, those being members of the SIS to respond to check the wreckage. Those Level Three personnel were then complacent enough to allow a tramp _Firefly_ class freighter which had been hiding for unknown reasons in the area of the crash site to evade them."

"There is no proof that the _Firefly_ is involved in any way other than being in the vicinity," Authority said, attempting to get his emotions back under control. He snapped up a hand to stop Influence from breaking in as he continued with, "yes, they would need to be eliminated as witnesses in any case, but the commanders and crews of _Firefly__'__s_ have almost always been scoundrels and cowards who would never take the chance of approaching a ship downed by the Alliance for fear of leaving evidence or otherwise being discovered."

"Then . . . where is the body?" Power said simply. "The bloody clothing, blood pool and bits of flesh on multiple sharp points within that escape pod point to an injured human being."

"Wherever it is, the Person of Interest is dead," Authority spoke with certainty. "The Level Three personnel who examined the pod determined that there was massive blood loss to whoever was inside. That, coupled with the amount of time that must have transpired from the time the cruiser shot down the ship until that same cruiser broke orbit during which the entire crash site was under observation from a high orbital, that there is no reasonable or logical way for whoever was inside the pod to have survived. They may have still been alive when . . . whoever pulled them out of the pod, but they would have required a major trauma center with immediate massive transfusions of blood and plasma to survive. Even if the Person of Interest was on that _Firefly_, they couldn't have lived more than half-a-day. The Person of Interest is dead so all we have to do is locate whoever took the body in order to close the book on this incident."

"Don't be so certain the Person of Interest is dead," Commerce stated in a cold warning tone. "We are aware of . . . certain special information which indicates that the Person of Interest could well have survived that kind of trauma."

"Again with the Special Information!" Authority bellowed, slamming his fist down as he came to his feet. "How can we effectively work to solve this problem without Full Disclosure—"

"ORDER!" erupted Power. "This matter has already been settled Authority and will not be reopened for discussion!"

"But every single facet of this conversation involves the Special Information! You cast the blame on Authority for the failure and yet those failures are based on the information provided."

"You have been advised," Power started to say—

"You and Influence and Commerce voted to withhold the Special Information," Authority slammed back. "And yet you charge my faction to capture this Person of Interest! How is Authority to do that if we don't have Full Disclosure? Already we have example after example of where this action has been hindered due to the lack of necessary information!"

Authority stopped long enough to cast a furious glance at Money hoping beyond hope that—

But Authority with that glance knew that there was no hope for supporting of his position from the complacent fool. With Power, Influence and Commerce solidly together, his only ally was Money. Money was equal to Power in both status and the ability to turn the Counsel in a particular direction. But Money was only concerned with the Bottom Line and Not Rocking the Boat with no long-term goals other than the Creation of Loans and the Collection of Debts. If something didn't interest Money, it was if the faction did not exist within the Counsel other than to take up space. And in this instance, Money was definitely not interested. Money had had its say earlier regarding its bywords, efficiency and cost effectiveness. At this point, nothing else mattered to it.

Authority turned back to the other three and with cold contempt he continued his plea. "The information initially disseminated within this Counsel was that an item vital to the security of this Counsel had been hijacked while in transit and that it was on its way to the _Qing __Long_ sector. Power, Influence and Commerce insisted that it immediately be located and recovered. Authority had no problem with this directive but wanted further information in order to deploy the appropriate assets including information on the nature of the missing item and how was it know to be in route to _Qing __Long_ when Authority, who is responsible for Intelligence and Surveillance knew nothing of the transport of a special item nor who would take it or why they would go to _Qing __Long_. A claim of Special Information was made blocking that request."

Authority held up a hard copy of the order that had been given, saying in an angry tone, "Power and Commerce demanded the maximum deployment of Fleet vessels but Money decreed that nothing over Level Four was to be utilized within the search with a firm limit on the number of those Level Four assets in order to hold costs down. Due to the 'sensitive nature' of the missing item, when considering the size of the area, that being the entire _Qing __Long_ was potentially involved, a scant number to Level Three units were authorized to stand by at central locations in order to secure the item when it was located. Finally information was provided that the wanted vessel was an older private long range yacht of limited serviceability which would be an easy target for the Fleet to run down."

Authority's gaze hardened as he continued with, "With such limited information, numerous vessels within _Qing __Long_ were stopped and searched resulting in a bounty of smugglers and vessels out of compliance with regulations but nothing matching exactly what was being search for was found. A number of actions were also encountered on the edge of the . . . restricted area of space within _Qing __Long_ that this body continues to ignore despite both Authority's and Money's repeated requests for action against the so-called Reaver's—"

Power smacked his gavel down, "the last portion of Authority's comment is struck from the record and he is advised _again_ never to bring that subject up—"

"But the damage the Reaver's cause by running wild—" Money started, the first emotion showing in his face—

Power's gavel slammed again, "Money is also advised and his faction is _fined_ for continuing the banned subject."

Money grumbled to himself angrily but subsided from any more comments.

Authority's face now boarded on livid. His tone was a tight as a bowstring as he continued with, "then, when a cruiser made notification that it was in pursuit of what was in fact a high speed courier boat, _that_ vessel is identified by Commerce as the object of the search under the claim of Special Information. _Then_ it is revealed by Influence that the stolen item was in fact a 'Person of Interest' and Power demanded that the vessel be stopped with minimal force in order to be able to confirm this Person's presence on board the vessel!"

It appeared as if steam might come out of Authorities ears as he continued, "_then_, when it was obvious that the ship would not escape and would be brought down by carefully aimed fire, it was made known that the Person of Interest was classified as Level One meaning that the Level Five personnel on the scene could not land for a proper investigation without endangering their own lives—_AND __I __WILL __NOT __KNOWINGLY __ORDER __PERSONNEL __UNDER __MY __AUTHORITY __TO __BE __CLEANSED __FOR __NO __REASON!_" Authority shouted at Commerce who actually leaned their head back and laughed.

"You are sooo _weak_." Commerce almost cackled. "You and all of your kind should listen to your own Code of Conduct and simply follow all orders and directives of those who are your betters. You should be _stripped_ of you position on the Counsel and be made the flunkies that your lack of guts deserves."

"I just gave THREE instances where the timely providing of Special Information would have greatly changed the results of this operation through the _correct_ deployment of assets," Authority countered with a deadly voice while ignoring Commerce's taunts. "Now it is just said that there is something very much out of the ordinary for the Person of Interest if they could have in fact survived the events that have been described. That is _another_ revelation that would have changed the conduct of the operation, certainly the conduct of the Level Three SIS vessel that responded. Authority is being hamstrung and made the scapegoat in this operation. Therefore I _demand_ full disclosure—."

"You shall not have it," Power's tone was now low and cold . . . a very bad sign. "There is good reason for the Privilege of Special Information in this instance and it is equally apparent that Authority cannot deal with the situation as such. Therefore, Authority is relieved of its responsibility in this matter and Level Two assets within Power's Bureaucracy are assigned. Authority will also transfer over all control of Level Four and Three assets which will be placed under Level Two control and will act as intelligence gatherers and scouts for Level Two operatives."

"You can't do that!" Authority yelled, horror in his tone.

"It is so ordered," Power thundered with a final strike of its gavel, "we are adjourned!"


	17. Encounter

Chapter Seventeen – Encounter

* * *

The following morning, they shifted to Beylix with the intention of hitting up its mechanics and 'junk' piles for the best parts their money could buy. They set down in the yard of an old acquaintance of Zoe's—

Rob Belgium was the color of night, his eyes perpetually hidden behind glasses with large round, almost black lenses and the only hair on his head was the van dyke on the front of his face. He looked seven feet tall and seemed seven feet wide without a single gram of fat on him anywhere. It was rumored that he was able to lift out an entire reaction control system unit without mechanical help. He was in the process of walking up as _Serenity__'__s_ ramp was coming down.

"Reynolds," he bellowed, his voice carrying over the dying whine of the VTOL engines, "you better have the cash up front 'cause this piece of _gos __se_ of yours sounds like it's on its way out."

"Now Robert," Mal replied in his usual lackadaisical way as he stepped down the ramp with Zoe beside him, "is that any way to greet a valued customer such as myself?"

"You are neither 'valued' or a 'customer'," was the sarcastic reply to the sarcastic statement. "You only come to me because you think that your First Mate can keep me from stepping on you like the bug that you are for which the whole Verse would thank me."

"Hey, be nice," Mal objected. "I actually have money to pay this time."

Even though the eyes were behind the shades, it was obvious that Belgium was staring at _Serenity__'__s_ Captain.

"And he even earned it with the hard sweat of his brow," Zoe put in with just a hint of a teasing smile.

Belgium threw a discarding hand at Mal as he looked at Zoe. "You really expect me to believe that he _worked_? _Earned_ money?"

"No actually," Mal said with a straight face, "I enslaved both an orphanage of children and an Old Folks home and put _them_ to work at half ration of bread and water a day." He gave Belgium one of his patented beatific smiles as he added, "low overhead you know, only way to turn a profit."

Belgium snorted, waving a hand up at _Serenity__'__s_ forward section, "next you'll be flyin a skull and crossbones up there Reynolds." He glanced at the ship, "assumin that you really do have money to pay for things, what's on your mind?"

"Kaylee's got a whole list," Mal said with a thumb jerked back over his shoulder. "Be best I suppose if the two of you and Wash got together to look over their needs against what I've got to pay and get it prioritized."

"I'll do that," Belgium muttered. He then swooped down on Zoe for a hug, blinding white teeth appearing in that fearsome visage. "How's my little one woman tornado?"

"Tryin to stay outta trouble," she said as she returned the hug.

When the huge man stood back up, he looked up the ramp to see Kaylee who had just come into view after making her way down from the forward ladder. "Hey miracle worker," he boomed, "figured out a way to turn straw into gold yet?"

Mal looked up with a frown, "who's doin the post landin work Kaylee?"

The mechanic looked down at her Captain with a smile, "Lady's doin it. I wanted her to try it on her own."

Lady had repeatedly demonstrated that her mechanical bent was just like her cooking bent, one that had been forgotten but more of which came to Lady's memory as she did the actual work. Kaylee had been very surprised with everything Lady had done with the power, lighting, plumbing and mechanical device repair inside of her former-storage room cabin. The only thing that Kaylee had had to do was, as a good Engineer, go back through and check the completed work. Mal hadn't been aware of what had been going on and had been more than a little ticked so he had made his displeasure known. Kaylee had come back with a spirited defense, calling Mal out on how much he had really known about _her_ talents and skills when he suddenly appointed her as Engineer after catching her and Bester in a compromising situation.

Faced with that, Mal had backed off but he has still insisted that Kaylee handle what he considered to be critical work. Giving Kaylee a 'less-than-overjoyed-look', he told the Engineer gruffly, "did I say that I'd be happy with a novice doin the shutdown procedures on my ship," Mal pointed his finger back into _Serenity_, "get your behind back into that Engine Room and make sure she don't turn off somethin that shouldn't get turned off."

"Okay, okay," Kaylee managed with a hurt tone as she turned and went back into the Cargo Bay.

Mal then looked back at Belgium with the same exaggerated smile on his face. "Sorry 'bout that. One of the orphans got loose it seems."

"One of these days," Belgium growled as he went around Mal to start up the ramp, "one of those 'orphans' are gonna stick a dead pig under the air vent of your cabin and turn the flow on 'high'.

* * *

Lady looked up as a grumpy Kaylee came back into the Engine Room. The older woman managed to completely hide any humor or 'told-you-so' vindication—because she _had_ told the young Engineer—

"You were right," Kaylee said without enthusiasm. "But damn it," she immediately countered herself, "you and I—and he if he would just think about it—there isn't a single mistake that you could make that would be any problem." She fumed for a moment before adding, "it's not as if I didn't intend to check on you when you were done."

Lady did give Kaylee a sympathetic smile before turning her attention back to her clipboard of notes on shutdown procedure.

Kaylee stood next to the hatch, face still 'angry' but her eyes attentively following Lady through the chores. Finally, at one point Lady stopped. She stood for a moment, looking at her clipboard, eyes narrowed in thought.

"What?" Kaylee asked.

"Something doesn't seem right," Lady murmured—then she looked up at the Engineer with just her eyes. "I've already admitted that much of your propulsion technology means nothing to me—that whatever I learned on was completely different—but that aside, some things shouldn't change and I find the fact that there is no surge safeguard prior to hooking up to the outside power source—" She tapped her finger on the clipboard as she mused, "that has to be potentially dangerous."

Kaylee could only shrug. "There originally were protectors for the switchover but the ones that were in her when the Captain bought her were pretty much shot I guess. Bester took 'em out and traded them for somethin else. Since then, it's just been a matter of isolating the flight deck—which is what Wash does when he does _his_ shutdown—and hopin for the best."

Lady's whole brow was now knitted in thought. Then she nodded her understanding. With that she reached out and flicked the last couple of switches on the board, blowing out a breath up past her nose (causing the stray hairs to move) as she said, "then we're done."

Kaylee opened her mouth to reply—then stopped. They were done but—there was something else as well.

There had been something that Kaylee had wanted to ask Lady, something that had been . . . bothering her for the last day. Up till this moment the Engineer had put her wonderings off through various excuses—saying to herself that there had never been a 'right time' for bringing it up. She knew that she had the 'right time' right now—but still she was shy and worried about offending Lady. Part of that was an extension of her upbringing; the 'staying out of other's people's business' part that ran so strongly through people from the parts she hailed from. The other part—if she was honest with herself was her fear that she would touch a sensitive subject within Lady. Kaylee really didn't _believe_ that Lady would get mad at her—but considering what Lady was like when she got mad—

"Is there something that you want to ask me?"

Kaylee jumped, startled out of her musing, clutching one hand in the other in front of her chest as she felt her cheeks turn red—

Lady was giving her a small, encouraging smile. Another 'real' smile that kind of broke the ice inside of Kaylee, giving her the courage too—

"I wanted to ask—" even so; the hesitation in Kaylee's voice was real evident. Her words ground to a halt at the end of that start.

Lady moved to a pose of exaggerated patience as she said, "Kaylee, you're the only one of the whole lot aboard whose seen my bite as well as my bark—not that I remember most of those things—but you have to know that I would never get angry with you over a question." She cocked her head to the side as if thinking, "now Jayne, the Captain and maybe occasionally Wash might be a different matter—"

Kaylee just had to smile at that—which gave her the encouragement to—

"Why—haven't you put the things I bought for your cabin out? Why are they still in their bags?" Despite it all, the young woman kind of hunched her shoulders in anticipation as she finished the question.

To Kaylee's surprise, Lady actually managed . . . to look a little embarrassed.

"Noticed that did you?" Lady replied in kind of a resigned way. Kaylee gave her a nervous nod in return.

Lady seemed to think for a very long minute, then with what seemed like a 'tired' breath blown up past her nose (again moving the hairs, this time to the point where Lady's hand came up to sweep them aside), it looked like she made a decision. She looked at Kaylee—who was again surprised for she saw what looked like 'desire for understanding' in Lady's eyes.

"I won't lie to you Kaylee but I must confess that for a while, I was not completely positive as to the reason. I've had some flashes and more impressions—but the simplest explanation that I can offer you is that my current cabin is not . . . home to me."

Kaylee's eyes clearly showed that she did _not_ understand. "But, I would think that I would want to put out things that a friend got me so they could be seen." Kaylee hesitated before asking, "I mean—wouldn't those kinds of things make it 'home' and—we are friends—aren't we?"

Frustration came into Lady's face. "How can I help you understand?" the older woman said as she looked around the room for as if trying to find the answer. But when she spoke again, she looked right at the Engineer.

"If what I'm feeling is right, I was a nomad for _decades_ Kaylee; I didn't have a home. Something tells me that the longest time I spend in one place was just over seven months. Some of the periods, some of the jobs and assignments were literally _days_." Lady paused a moment before, "remember the angry teamster and what we talked about?" When Kaylee nodded with the memory, "I told you that at some point in my life I was a cold, bitter, tough not-so-little _bitch_ whose job was to be just that way. I haven't remembered the details yet, but it seemed that I was employed _because_ I had a reputation for that—and the fact that my being like that was what was used to get whatever the job I was hired for _done_. But I also said that I was alone, even among many."

A grimness had come to her face. "I also came to . . . dislike myself because of what I had been forced to become in order to work. Because of that—I had self esteem issues—and apparently one of the ways those issues expressed themselves was that I absolutely refused to have anything in regards to 'personal property'—that being any kind of memento or decoration or—"

"But that was then," Kaylee half whined. "You must have gotten better. You've said that things got better—"

A sad smile came to Lady's face. "But as of yet, those memories haven't come back. And apparently I'm afraid that I'm prone to—call it melancholia—I just hide it behind a tough façade."

_Like __that __smile __she __showed __me __and __Inara_ Kaylee thought. _Somehow __the __real __Lady __came __through __then. __Everything __else __she __keeps __hidden __and __locked __away __for __most __of __the __time__—__even __her __smiles __aren__'__t __real __during __those __times._

It was as if Lady read her mind. For she suddenly stepped up to the Engineer, firmly putting her hands of Kaylee's shoulders.

"Despite the fact that it looks like to you and all the world that I'm becoming acclimated, that I'm getting use to my surroundings and am feeling a little more at ease in what happens every day; the truth is—I can't relax—I can't really let my guard down—as much as I might want to. It's like the thing with the leather clothing—a part of me came back—but it was a part that could endanger me by making me stand out. As much as I've come to know and understand and _like_ you and Zoe and Inara and River; yes Kaylee you are my friend—I still have to constantly remind myself that I'm a stranger here—a dangerous stranger who for their own benefit and safety—as well as for the safety of those that she's come to think of as friends—should not and cannot relax."

Lady bent down slightly so that Kaylee could look right into her eyes. "Someone brought me here to your Verse against my will—_that_ I know for a fact. Whoever they are, they're still out there and we do not know why they wanted me or what they will do to find me and get me back—if not kill me and maybe those with me."

Lady gave Kaylee a firm nod, "I have to be very careful—more careful that River and Simon have to be—because like I told the Captain when he invited me to stay—I don't know the rules here so I'm especially vulnerable to what is to me the unknown."

Lady waited a moment, holding both Kaylee's shoulders and eyes—until the Engineer nodded with understanding.

"Because of that—I have apparently reverted to a mode of living that apparently helped me survive all those hard decades I mentioned—meaning that it won't let me get too comfortable—it keeps me from relaxing, mentally forces me to stay on my toes." Lady waited a beat—"living in a bare, barren space is a part of that mode. It's unfortunate but it's necessary for it seems to work. But it's only a part of what I have to do. We don't want whoever _they_ are to find me. So—"

Lady hesitated, then she told Kaylee in a voice which was . . . apologetic. "In a way . . . I'm being . . . untruthful Kaylee. Because in that way, I'm not being truthful to you. That's because in several ways, I am not being . . . myself. At least not the real me who would . . . if what I feel is correct . . . do several things and act in certain situations differently than what you have so far seen."

After another moment, Kaylee nodded again.

Now Lady smiled—but it was a veiled smile. "I guess that it could be said that I'm operating on what might be considered my best behavior. Which means that I'm nice and polite and agreeable and I don't . . . normally cuss or get into arguments—even for the fun of it for something tells me that I actually _like_ arguing and debating." Lady's smile became a little crooked, "unfortunately that means that I have to do things which keep me alert, keep me from becoming too comfortable—and I'm afraid that as I said, one of those 'tools' that I use to keep myself from dropping the clanger is a bare, undecorated cabin." She gently shook Kaylee's shoulders, "I'm sorry, and it's not meant as an insult to you Kaylee, it's just the way it is."

Kaylee—did not look happy. She sounded even worse.

"Alright—I'm sorry about—I just wish—"

To the Engineer's shock, something akin to a 'mischievous' twinkle came into Lady's eyes.

"Actually, something tells me—at least as far as my cabin goes, that it's actually a good thing that I don't get too comfortable."

Kaylee blinked, clearly not understanding. "But why—" she wondered.

"Because something tells me that if I was comfortable being here—that you wouldn't want to come into my cabin because it would be such a mess."

"What—?" Kaylee managed in shock.

Lady nodded her head in confirmation. "It's not really clear—but something tells me that for all the order and discipline and organization that I so easily display and so effortlessly accomplish as a part of my military bearing—that if I considered myself to be at 'home'—my cabin would be an utter mess." The grin was back on Lady's face. "I do believe that it's a rebellion thing against something that happened to me in my teen years. But if memory serves me, if I'm in my 'comfortable-at-home' mode, I'm a total slob. There'd be stacks of books and documents on the floor, underwear and socks all over the place, bras hanging from the lampshades where they had been thrown after being taken off because when I'm comfortably home alone I'm normally braless—"

"_NO_!" Kaylee cried in giggling disbelief.

Lady just grinned back at her.

A real grin—

* * *

That night, Lady got up and started to clear the table. Mal, who had been enjoying the meal despite the not-so-nice looks he had been getting from Kaylee during it, pushed himself up from the table and announced, "up everybody, we need to help the Cook clean up sois Belgium's crew can come in and rewire those power trunks." As all present started to bus their own dishes, Mal noticed that Lady was giving him a look that combined surprise with annoyance. Belatedly he realized—

"Ah, sorry," he told Lady as he came up holding his own stuff, "guess I'm not really use to havin a cook yet. Should of told you."

"Yes you should have," she told him with a scolding tone, one that made Kaylee look over with a smile, obviously happy that _someone_ on board had no problem giving Mal a little of his own back . "And just how long is this going to mess up my domain?" Lady went on. "I had planned on some pastries in the morning but they need to be started early."

Wash looked up shocked, "pastries! PASTRIES!" The Pilot stumbled over and grabbed the Captain by the lapels. "Call it off, call it off damn you. Call off Belgium's work crew. I'll rewire them all by myself for pastries."

Even Jayne was smiling as Mal gently but firmly planted his own palm into Wash's face and _pushed_. Wash recoiled away in a flittering slow-motion kind of way muttering, "bear claws, apple turnovers, cinnamon rolls—"

Lady was eyeing Wash with an amused twinkle, saying in a 'loud' hushed voice, "actually it was going to be raspberry tarts—"

Wash 'lunged' back at Mal with the cry of, "raspberry tarts or death—!"

Only to have his wife grab him by the collar, spin him about, shove her face which looked like his death about to occur into his face, telling him, "the table—clean—now."

"Yes dear," was the meek reply.

The bemusement faded and the annoyance returned as Lady looked back to Mal.

"At least couple—three days," he told her wincing on the inside when Lady's eyes first flared wide, then narrowed in annoyance. Mal nodded an admission of guilt. "Again, I shoulda said somethin." He looked at the rest of his 'crew', "we're so use to just goin out and findin whatever's to be had when the galleys down that it wasn't givin a thought."

Lady's annoyance turned to a glare that carried over into her voice. "We're not going to lose power to the reefers are we?"

"No," Kaylee immediately put in. "Different system entirely. What's gettin replaced is part of the Cortex system."

The glare left Lady with a short, abrupt sigh, "fine." She then looked around the Dining Area, "then I will get started stowing all of this stuff out of the workmen's way."

"The workmen normally do that," Mal said. He seemed to hesitate for a moment before, "in fact, normally when this has happened, we all would have gone out to eat in town anyway and let Belgium's men go ahead and get started. But I figured that you already had the makeins on the table so—"

The glare came back into Lady's eyes. "And you rather that I made dinner than tell me ahead of time when I could have put everything back and gotten this space is a condition where _I_ felt comfortable with workmen coming into it."

"Think of that as . . . a complement," Mal told her with his tongue firmly in his cheek.

After a long moment, Lady's glare faded to just the slightest of smiles and a little shake of her head as if she was letting a bad little boy get away with a white lie. She then turned back toward the table to finish her work.

"As I was about to say," Mal went on to all of those in the room with him, "usually after a good run like this . . . the Captain treats the crew to somethin special."

That . . . caused everyone in the room to cast a look of incredulous disbelief his way—which in turn got him an incredibly raised eyebrow from a certain tall, athletically built woman that asked the question that he answered with, "hey, well . . . usually it's a meal but bein that we just had one that was so good—"

The glare was back.

Mal gave his most innocent look, "nothin but the best for my crew."

* * *

_Steady __woman__—__deep __breath__—__find __and __hold __onto __your __Center__—_

Lady was long use to the disorientation caused from her flashes. But this flash, it literally caused her to sway. It took her a moment to realize—

_It__'__s__—__it__'__s __on __multiple __levels, __sight-__sound-__the __whole . . . __atmosphere_. When things stopped spinning enough for her to open her eyes, she looked about her and knew, _I__'__ve __been __in __a__lot __of __places __like __this._

Lady had the opportunity to take it all in from the balcony next to the front door as Mal, Zoe and Jayne checked their weapons into the lockers at the entrance. The view had hit her like a brick, bringing in so many flashes that they had been impossible to take in or throttle them down to a bearable level. She reached up and rubbed the back of her left hand against her right cheek—

A large but dim room, full of dark corners to her right side, layers of different colored smoke floating above several of them. The rest of the place was filled with tables and it seemed that every single inch between the tables was stuffed with tough looking men (with just a few women) drinking, laughing, arguing. At the far back were the lights of pool tables, along the entire wall to her left was a brightly lit bar.

"Let's go," Mal ordered in a jovial tone, "best _hanyu __pinyin_ in the sector and I'm buyin for everybody."

Lady stepped down the dozen or so steps to the floor. _You__'__ve __seen __more __than __a __few __of __these __haven__'__t __you __dear_, Lady told herself as she followed the others through the mass of people. _L__arge __and __small, __some __clean, __many __filthy. __And __none __of __it __helps __you __because __no __matter __where __you __are __it __seems, __the __working __mates __bars __are __always __the __same._

Back in the 'eating' area to the side of the pool table area, Mal and Jayne 'convinced' a couple of small parties to give up their tables in order for them to be pushed together to accommodate all eight of them. Lady, as she sat down, looking at her surrounding with that piercing all-seeing stare that she performed without thought. She knew that she was going to miss the Shepherd in this setting for Book had gone off to 'pay his respects to the local Bishop' or something. Glancing at Mal, she also suspected that the . . . lack of calming influence that Inara had on the Captain (when the two of them weren't mad at each other) was also going to be felt as the Companion had gone off to meet another client.

For the moment, Mal was standing at the head of the table taking everybody's drink order. Even River was ordering some kind of a beverage. When Mal pointed his finger at Lady, "you won't have any idea what you want so I'll get you somethin that will fix you right up."

Lady looked up, caught off guard. She had been looking around her, assimilating her surrounding, feeling those old ghosts of almost memories—she really hadn't been paying attention to Mal or what he had been doing. "A drink?" she asked. "What do you—?"

"Can't hold your liquor?" Jayne asked in a snide tone. "Need your milk to make sure you sleep tonight?"

Mal kind of waved his hands around trying to draw an answer out of Lady. "So you know something you like? You want beer? You want whiskey? Wine? What'sit gonna be?"

Lady's eyes flared wide, "ah—" was all she managed to get out. Those at the table were a little surprised for it looked as if there was a minuscule moment of 'panic' in Lady's eyes. It also looked as if she was trying hard to keep from going into a 'flash'.

"What's the problem?" Mal asked sounding a little annoyed.

Lady waved her own hand, getting out a shaky sounding as she closed her eyes/shook her head—it looked to Zoe as if she was trying to push something that upset her away, "I—I'm not sure . . . but . . . I don't know—I think I'd rather not—I'm still too . . . unsure of my surroundings" She visibly tried to get a grip on herself, almost blurting, "I don't want _anything_ to mess with my clarity and perceptions."

"Do you get on up on the table and dance nekked?" Jayne asked in a lecherous tone.

Mal was looking a little worried, "I . . . don't think that they have anything here that isn't alcoholic." He pointed at River, "I mean, what she's havin is considered a 'cooler' and that's about as mild as they—

"They have green tea," Zoe said right at Mal as if she was addressing a naive schoolchild.

"Oh, yeah, right," Mal said in response looking a little abashed. He then beckoned to Lady, "come, help me carry everything and we'll find somethin for you."

It seemed that wading through the crowd to get in to the front of the bar was a kind of contact sport . . . which at the moment was okay with Lady for the action for it was a diversion which allowed her to recover from the totally unexpected reaction she had just experienced. Inwardly she was appalled at the power of whatever it was that had just happened to her. She knew that it had something to do with the compulsion she felt in her cabin in the evenings but the fierceness of the denial that had erupted within her—

So she let her Captain lead, forcing her mind to clear, finding as they made their way that she was capable of slipping with smooth fluid ease into the the gap made by him pushing his way through. Like a swimmer grabbing at a life ring, she focused on this, trying to get past what had happened, forcing it behind her—as if she didn't _want_ to deal with it. The fact that she was getting the occasional elbow or shoulder butting into her body helped divert her but she found that she was able to flow around them with minimal impact.

Once they reached the bar, Lady was content to let Mal shout the orders. Inside she continued to try and calm herself, seeking and finding her Center (again), shouting at herself the fact that she should be watching the Captain's back within the thickness of the crowd. She found comfort that she was able to get into what seemed to be a well recognized routine, an instinctive 'programming', something obviously she had long experience with, her head swiveling about as she watched her Captain's back, knowing that she wasn't looking for something specific but armed with the knowledge that she would _know_when and if something triggered her attention—

Then her eyes locked. They locked on another pair of eyes, a pair that was at least four or five clusters of bodies away, a pair that were locked on Mal with a hostile glare that could only mean trouble. Lady started to grab at her Captain's shoulder to turn him . . . but it was already too late, the tide of the sea of humanity had closed the window, the face holding those eyes lost to her view.

Lady was holding her cup of tea far above her head as she carried a pair of mugs in her other hand. On the return trip to the table, she was breaking trail. Unlike the icebreaker style employed by her Captain, she followed a route of the path of least resistance, usually around sides and backs. It took a little longer, but with Mal having his arms wrapped around five drinks, holding them to his middle as if cradling a baby, she thought it best to have discretion be the better part of valor.

They made it back to their table, passing out the drinks. Lady then turned on her Captain, grabbing the shirt at his shoulder to pull his ear to her lips, "sir, someone at the bar was giving you a most unfriendly eye." Mal jerked his head back in order to look at her eyes. She then answered the question in those eyes, "they moved before I could get your attention."

Mal's own gaze then swept the bar. But visibility out into the dim main part was almost nonexistent. After a moment, he could only look back at Lady with a shrug. "No tellin," he told her in a 'loud' low tone. "Made a few enemies here and there. Kinda hard to say."

Lady nodded. She had anticipated as much. With no further words, she started to move toward her seat. Then she noticed that Zoe's eyes were on the both of them with questions of their own.

The group stayed for three rounds, augmented by a double plate of Mal's _hanyu __pinyin_ (which turned out to be mostly untouched as everyone was still full from Lady's meal). While he had initially been a little stiff (Lady was unsure if the stiffness was due to her warnings), Mal loosened up with his beers and a couple of pool games with Jayne and Wash. Zoe, after Mal had said a few quick words into her ear, nursed her one drink the entire time and it was plain that she spent most of that time eyeing the edge of the crowd and those who came into the pool/dining area. She didn't leave this 'post' even at the suggestion of a 'team' game with her husband against Mal and Jayne.

Lady found that she wanted to do the same but her place at the table meant that her back was to the crowd. She did realized however that she was able to fall into a state where she appeared relaxed but was in fact coiled and ready. It came to her that she was experiencing another state that was the result of long training and conditioning, as if she was use to being in situations where she was in a place where she 'appeared' relaxed and unfocused but was in fact totally aware of her surroundings and ready to act against anything that struck out at her or her friends. The situation also was able to allow her to put the bewilderment and worry from her strange reaction to the offer of alcohol onto a mental 'back burner' where she worked to totally bury it away from any light of day.

River—who had seemed to be slightly less lethargic then she had been—found that she was unused to the food and thick atmosphere within the bar as well as the minor alcoholic content of her 'cooler'. As such, she started to get sleepy. Lady had to point this out to Simon for he and Kaylee were pretty much absorbed in each other.

"Oh," Simon turned a little red. "I should have been paying attention." He touched his sister's face, turning it in order to look into her eyes for a moment. "Do we need to get back?" he asked her as quietly as he could in the noise that surrounded them.

Lady noted that Kaylee looked less than enthused about Simon's attention toward his sister. She started to reach out to put a comforting hand on the mechanics shoulder even as Kaylee gathered herself to stand in order to allow Simon room to deal with River—

"Watch it!" called Zoe . . . but Lady had already reacted without even seeing what was coming. The 'reaching-out-to-touch-Kaylee's-shoulder' turned into a grab and yank, both of them going to the deck as the billyclub passed through the air where Kaylee's head _would_ have been had she stood up. The two of them hit the floor hard, Lady trying her best to cushion Kaylee who was coming down with wildly flailing arms rather than tucking her head into those arms to protect it.

At the same time Zoe had come up out of her chair, but the table blocked any effective move on her part as a wall of men dressed in black erupted out of the thick edge of the crowd. The Tam's fumbled up out of their chairs a moment later, backing together for the safety of the wall behind them. Jayne had time to look up and shout, "hey," before that wall of men moved further into the pool area surrounding the crewmembers of _Serenity_.

Mal and Wash whirled about at Jayne's yell, Mal taking in the men and their mode of dress. It was easy to tell that they were Scrapmen, probably from the one of the big recycling fields/smelters that dotted the landscape around the area. "What in the—" was all he was able to get out as he tried to move toward Kaylee and Lady before another billyclub came out from somewhere and smacked him in the chest. It stopped him cold, half bending him.

Even as Mal was stopped, the group of men continued to move. In moments, two had come around the table, each one taking one of Zoe's arms in firm grips effectively immobilizing her as she stood stoically waiting for things to run their course at which time someone might tell them just what was going on. Others came to stand in front of Wash who had started to move toward his wife when she had become threatened. They didn't grab him; they just firmly blocked his way.

Keeping one hand firmly on Kaylee's shoulder in order to make sure the mechanic stayed in her place on the floor, Lady had started to cautiously come up onto her hands and knees, only to have a large booted foot placed into her back _shoving_ her back down into her stomach. Lady's head turned to look up at the man holding her down, seeing him leering at her as he slowly tapped the billyclub that had missed Kaylee's head into the palm of his free hand in anticipation.

Waves of noise still washed over them from the main room of the bar but the pool area was quiet as everyone waited for the next move. Mal's eyes were watering from the punch to his sternum but they were also searching to try and identify who these people were wondering if one of them was the man Lady had seen at the bar. But he didn't recognize any of them as being a known 'enemy' of his. He knew of nothing that he had ever done to Scrapmen.

Then another stepped out of the watching crowd—no it was actually three who came out—the second two looked vaguely—

"Which ones?" the man who preceded the second two asked of them. This pair then nodded their heads at Mal and Jayne.

The second two men, no—now that Mal was actually 'looking' at them, he realized that they were no more than young boys, barely teens, their mode of dress making them look older. But there was no doubt that the two were one of the small groups that Mal and Jayne had 'convinced' to give up their table. Only now belatedly did Mal realize that first; they had been 'Scrappers' as well and second, they appeared to be young apprentices. Mal wondered if they had been holding the table for the larger group of Scrappers . . . who were no doubt very unhappy that Mal and and Jayne had—

The man who was acting as the Leader then walked up to Mal, shouldered through the men standing in front of the _Serenity__'__s_ Captain to say, "you insult one of us, even if they be our youngins . . . you insult all of us."

At which time the Leader let out with a sharp jab to Mal's jaw sending the Captain back into the pool table.

Jayne came around, to help Mal up, the Merc's eyes counting and sizing up all the men before him, one was holding down the Bitch (Lady), two had Zoe, two had Wash and five were in front of him and Mal (seven if you counted the two shrimps that they'd kicked off the table but the way they were hanging back Jayne didn't think they'd be in the mix up once it started). Jayne then grinned, ten to four odds (he didn't count Wash in a fight) and a chance to see just how good the Bitch really was. This was going to be his kind of fight.

The Merc had gotten Mal onto his feet, the _Serenity__'__s_ Captain wiping at the corner of his mouth with a wrist. There was fire in Mal's eyes but he kept his voice calm as he turned back to the Leader. "We don't want any trouble," he started.

"Then you shouldn't be throwin your dead ass around Spacer," the Leader snapped back at him, even as he _backhanded_ Mal across the face. "Jus think that you can walk in, all high and mighty and kick us 'poor' people around. We Scrapmen _work_ for a livin Spacer, day in and day out. Hard work, none of this floatin around with nothin to do between ports other than gettin a blowjob from the whore's in your crew."

Mal was forced to wipe the other side of his mouth as he brought his head back around. "Look," he said in an amazingly bland tone, "I've been comin to this place for quite a spell. If you have as well, you gots to know that they don't tolerate too much rambunctiousness within their walls."

The whole group of men laughed in his face. "Yah, yer right 'bout that," the Leader said as he controlled the chuckles, "so it seems that your luck is jus downright bad Spacer." The Leader glanced at his mates before he gave Mal and Jayne a big smile. "Seem's that tonight, the owners are out—leavin a very understandin cousin of mine as the Manager in charge." The smile and humor vanished from the Scrapman's face. "Yeah, real bad luck Spacer. 'Cause we're gonna make an example of you and your crew. We Scrapmen are tired of your kind lookin down on us." The Leader came in close to say in a deadly voice, "we ain't just gonna kick the crap outta you Spacer. We're gonna hurt you—hurt you real bad—you'll see the inside of the hospital tomorrow morn Spacer—if you live to wake up."

"Gonna take morein the ten of you to do that," Jayne told the Leader, his tone was that of scorn and disbelief.

The Leader raised an eyebrow. He then grinned again at his fellows around him. "See, what'd I tell ya, these _fay __fay __due __pee __yen__'__s_ don't take us or our way of life seriously." He then glanced over toward Wash and the table where the others were before looking back at Jayne, "You figure that the odds are ten to eight don't ya?"

Mal's eyes went wide for a split second when he realized, "those against the wall," he said sharply pointing to Simon and River, "are just passengers that we brought along for a meal. They don't have anything to do with bein crew."

The Leader eyed Mal for a moment, then took a long look at the Tam siblings. Finally he nodded saying to Mal even though he was still looking at the Tam's, "wondered 'bout that. Didn't think they looked like Spacers." He looked back to Mal, "so their safe solong as they don't jump in on their own." The smile came back, "so let's see, if my poor two grade education don't fail me, that means the odds be ten to six." He glanced up at Jayne. In fact both Mal and the Merc were taller than any of the Scrappers. "With this fighter of yours," the Leader admitted, "there jus might be a problem." Then the smile turned into a grin. "But ya see, we Scrappers are proper folk. And we won't do things that we don't believe in. Such as, what women should be." He then waved a hand toward Lady, Kaylee and Zoe, "we know that no proper woman would become a Spacer. Only whore's who can't cook or clean or refuse to fall in behind their men as is intended." The Leader then looked over at the women of _Serenity_. "But we Scrapper's won't insult our own heritage by fighting with whores." He nodded.

As the two men holding Zoe suddenly whipped her pinned arms painfully behind her back bending her half forward; the one standing over Lady did a sudden knee drop into her back. Lady made a gawdawful sound as the air was knocked out of her and she flattened out on the deck. The Scrapper who had landed on her bounced his knee into again _hard_ causing her head to come up in open mouthed pain with no sound joining it. The Scrapper then came up onto his feet . . . roughly grabbing Kaylee by her hair and shoulders as he did so, forcibly hauling the Engineer up onto her feet.

Simultaneously some new men stepped out of the crowd. They were dressed like employees of the bar. Mal thought that one of them looked somewhat familiar but only as far as belonging to the bar rather than the man that Lady had seen watching him earlier.

The Leader's grin continued as he waved his hand toward the newcomers. "My esteemed cousin and his two brother-in-laws, those who are in charge of this fine establishment this evening, here to make sure that those so-called women of yours keep their proper place and are outta our way."

As the one Scrapper pulled Kaylee over toward a struggling Zoe, the Leader's 'cousin' walked up next to Lady and with the same sudden savageness, he too did another knee drop onto her back. Lady again jerked in pain, gasping struggling for air. He then pulled back from her, grabbed her right arm and violently yanked it up and behind her in a rear locked control hold that tore at her joint and tendons, using the pain/pressure to force her down flat into the floor.

The one Scrapper pushed/pulled Kaylee over, finally 'throwing' her at Simon and River who caught the terrified girl, Simon wrapping his arms around her in an attempt to calm and protect her. Zoe meanwhile had been driven to her knees by the two Scrappers and their twin rear arm locks on her. The two brothers-in-laws moved into take their place each of them taking one of Zoe's arms allowing that pair of Scrappers, each with a contemptuous sneer at Zoe as they stepped away, to move over into the crowd behind the Leader raising the number of those facing Mal and Jayne to eight.

As that happened, the two Scrappers blocking Wash from reaching his wife suddenly pushed him hard back toward Mal and Jayne. "You guys don't know what your messing with," the Pilot managed to say before another massive push threw him to the floor behind Mal but in front of Jayne. The Merc didn't help the Pilot up for his total attention was on the Scrappers who now—

They all came together behind the Leader who with his grin, proclaimed proudly, "so it looks like the odds be ten to three—morein enough I would say to make sure that you Spacers really crash and—"

That was as far as the Leader got for Mal suddenly reached out, grabbed the man by the lapels and _yanked_ him in hard. Mal slammed his own head forward, head butting the Leader, Mal's forehead to the Leaders nose. The nose _smashed_, instantly pulped, gore splattering across Mal's forehead and face but dropping the Leader like he's been hit in the back of the head by a hammer.

Mal moved backwards, staggering a little from the force of his own blow as he tried to clean the Leaders blood from his own vision. In his stumbled back he almost tripped over Wash who was trying to get up. The danger to Mal falling down over Wash finally goaded Jayne into helping the Pilot up so that the three _Serenity _men were all on their feet and facing their enemy.

Who were all staring dumbfounded at the unmoving form of their Leader. The shock of the sudden turnabout had gotten to them, allowing Mal and Wash the chance to recover—but then—the realization hit them, their faces came up to look as Mal, Wash and Jayne even as the billyclubs—as well as a knife or two—came out—

"Now . . . you . . . _are__.__.__._ dead," the next one who had been alongside of the Leader growled—then he swung the billyclub—


	18. Altercation

Chapter Eighteen – Altercation

* * *

Mal ducked even as he threw up a raised arm block that raked down the forearm of his attacker, the co-leaders club arm, causing it to just miss Mal's head as his other hand came up with a wicked uppercut to the co-leaders jaw—

The same instant, Jayne lowered his head and charged into the two next to the one Mal was engaging, a bull-like bellow exploding out of him. Jayne danced in, twisting, sliding past the outstretched knife of the first one. The Merc cocked his head to the side to accept the blow from the billyclub of the second one onto his shoulder even as the Merc went for the arm holding the knife as he moved past it. Jayne grabbed and twisted that wrist/arm, spinning his own body around into the knife holder, using the size/mass of his own body and the knife holder in tandem to slam sideways into the club holder, knocking the club holder violently sideways as the Merc completed the move against the knife holder. Using the grip on the knife arm, Jayne forced the knife holder to turn with him, the knife holder losing his balance, the knife holder going down onto his knees because of the arm still trapped in the Merc's grip. Jayne continued through the move, turning all the way around, dragging the knife holder along with him until the Merc was facing the direction of the club holder who was trying to regain his balance. Jayne then simultaneously twisted the knife arm/wrist casing the blade to clatter the the floor while his body rocked sideways allowing the Merc to kick the off-balance club holder square in the side.

Wash screamed with a wild waving of hands/arms as the two before him lunged at him As he did so, the Pilot dropped, his feet shooting out from under him as he literally made himself a small ball that slid between the two startled Scrappers as they came at him. Those two, instinctively trying to follow Wash turned into each other in a magnificent crash, tangling up with each other—going down. Wash rolled up onto his feet; a discarded pool clue in his hands and with another blood curdling scream, the Pilot raised that cue above his head ignoring the attackers behind him as he charged forward toward the two brothers-in-law bar workers who were holding his wife.

Mal had rung the clock of the co-leader before him with the uppercut but the man was a Scrapper, brawling was a way of life. The co-leader backed up, snapping his head back to miss being hit by Mal's follow up, took a moment to shake off the first hit Mal had got in and started to raise the club again in preparation for another charge at the Captain just as the club holder who had just been kicked sideways by Jayne crashed into him. The co-leader fought to stay on his feet, arms outstretched for balance allowing Mal to grab one of those arms, yank it in, twist it about, spinning the co-leader completely around and up against Mal's chest, screaming from the pain as Mal locked the man's arm up behind his back. Mal then shoved the man away with all his strength. The co-leader flew forward over Jayne's downed club holder, the both of them crashing to the floor in a heap. The last two Scrappers, who had just been charging toward Mal smashed into this heap, halfway losing their footing, effectively blocking them from entering the battle, both of them 'dancing' to their respective sides trying to avoid the pile of down Scrappers.

Jayne felt his first opponent, the knife holder, who was down on his knees next to the Merc snake a hand in around Jayne's legs trying to pull the big Merc off balance and down. In response, Jayne broke the wrist which he still had a hold of. The disarmed knife holder screamed and tried to jerk away . . . Jayne released the wrist/arm but turned after the knife holder, bending forward slightly and delivering a wicked left to the temple of the holder as he tried to get away. The blow knocked the knife holder down and out next to the pool table. Jayne immediately started to simultaneously come back upright and turn back into the fight when a new one jumped up onto his back with the intention of choking and pummeling the Merc from behind, screaming like a banshee as he did so, causing every eye within earshot to look—

The Manager holding Lady jerked his vision over to the banshee scream. At that moment Lady suddenly moved from her prone position, trying to roll and twist, her captor, the leaders cousin, giving a cry of surprise at the woman's sudden action, frantically shifting his attention from the screaming fight by the pool table to the woman under him even as he instinctively cranked on the pressure into the woman's arm/shoulder—only to lose it when Lady pushed _through_ the hold, her shoulder dislocating, muscles and ligaments tearing as Lady intentionally absorbed the damage. The Manager's shock that a woman would carelessly injure herself in that way caused him to loosen his grip on the arm allowing Lady to violently twist partially onto her side, curling up into a ball to do so. She then kicked out with one foot at the outside ankle of the Manager so hard that it shattered. The Manager immediately crumpled down, the need to cushion his own fall with his hands causing him to completely release the rest of his grip on Lady's arm and splay his arms out in front of him to stop his downward crash even he cried out in pain.

As Wash charged, the nearer of the brothers-in-law was forced to release his grip on Zoe's arm and come up in an attempt to block Wash's attack. There was no finesse to the Pilot's assault allowing the first brother-in-law to block the downward swing of the cue while punching at the Pilot's face. The only thing that kept Wash from taking the hit full was that he was suddenly tackled from his side. His attacker had been one of the Scrappers that Mal had 'thrown' the co-leader at who had danced away from the heap of bodies to avoid being knocked down. This Scrapper had seen Wash's charge causing him to dart across the gap to intercept the Pilot, leaping in a full flying tackle, managing to fall close enough to get enough of a grip on Wash's legs to bring the Pilot down.

Zoe taking advantage of the fact that only one of the brothers-in-law from the bar was currently holding her, twisted violently in his grip trying to roll out of the arm lock, the second brother-in-law coming down on the Soldier with his full body weight in an attempt to hold her.

Jayne grabbed at the one on his back as the other Scrapper who had almost been brought down from the 'thrown' co-leader leapt over the bodies in the heap going for Mal, the Captain and his new attacker grappling together, going down into a pile of their own. Jayne physically pulled the one off of his back as if he was stripping off a tight shirt over his head, dropping/throwing that Scrapper straight down and as hard as he could at the Merc's feet even as Jayne became aware of a fresh attack in the form of a knife coming in through his army jacket from behind his hip. Zoe managed to flip around enough to drag the second brother-in-law into her, grappling with him as he lost most of his hold by failing to anticipate the strength of the 'woman' he was attempting to control. Wash had rolled into a ball, unable to get up with his legs trapped in the grip of the Scrapper who had tackled him, arms wrapped around his head to protect it as the first brother-in-law stood over him pounding down on the Pilot with both fists. Lady, twisting about on her side took aim at the Manager who was on his knees next to her, just in the process of trying to scramble away—she kicked him full force in the face with her boot breaking nose, jaw and cheekbones—and causing instant unconsciousness.

With a cry, River, moving like lightning, came away from the wall, a heavy serving tray that had been on the table next to her in her hands, moving to help Wash, the tray crashing down on the head of the first brother-in-law again and again and again—

"River!" both Kaylee and Simon screamed, the Doctor releasing the Mechanic to rush after his sister, grabbing her in a bear hug from behind, dragging her back even as she fought kicking and spitting to get free from his grip, she dropped the tray—

Wash unfolded himself, grabbing up the discarded tray as it clattered to the floor next to him even as he rolled on his hip to his butt, sitting up to smash the tray down on the head of the Scrapper holding his legs while as he raised his eyes to see the first two Scrappers that he had initially dodged finally coming after him.

Jayne twisted about. He had grabbed the hand with the knife, twisted it, bringing it in hard against his side, trapping it there. He could feel the blade saw through his shirt and into his skin but if he could take care of the threat quick enough, the wound would be superficial. His other hand smashed into the face of this second knife holder like a pile driver. The man's eyes went glassy but he was also a Scrapper, used to punishment. Before Jayne could land a second blow, the first club holder whom Jayne had knocked aside at the start charged back into the fray, hitting the Merc with a full body tackle, the whole mass lurching back into the side of the pool table.

Mal, using his greater speed and size, had managed to roll on top of the one who had tackled him. The Captain rapidly got in two good shots which stunned the one under him until a blow from behind caused the inside of the Captains head to start to go to black.

A cry like an attacking cougar ripped from Zoe's throat as she simultaneously got a knee shot into the second brother-in-laws groin and a jab into his eye. His body reacted to the knee shot even as he round housed the Soldier across the jaw. Zoe fought to keep her focus as her opponent started to curl around his groin. She 'C' clamped his Adam's apple with one hand and hit him square in the nose with the other even as she felt his hands going around her own throat.

Wash threw the tray at his two charging attackers even as the one who had been holding his legs scrambled to get away from the Pilot. Between the two factors, Wash was able to get to his feet, but again, despite the oncoming threats his goal was his wife. In two half-running steps Wash was there, his wife's attacker was now choking Zoe with both hands despite her efforts to stop him—Wash kicked the man in the side of the head just as hard as he could even as his pursuing attackers grabbed him from behind.

Lady staggered to her feet, one arm draped and swaying uselessly, her face a pale mask that showed no emotion. Her eyes swept the pool area searching/evaluating. They landed on the one Scrapper who had just gotten away from Wash and the serving tray who was just getting to his feet. This Scrapper saw Lady, saw that she was handicapped, injured, probably in shock—and a woman. This Scrapper allowed a smile to come to his face as he walked toward Lady with the purpose of knocking her down as the simple female she was. As he came up to Lady, this Scrapper swore, _"cao ni zu zong shi ba dai"_. Lady dipped her head slightly, growling in a voice tainted with pain. "Just what I bloody need!" She looked accusingly at the Scraper. "You know mate, I've got a whole lot of really patient people trying to teach me the flippin language but my tin ears and tied tongue just get me knackered. After weeks and everything they've tried, I _really_ don't know what you just said but my guess is that it wasn't anything a proper lady should hear." Her look then turned angry. "So don't waste your breath mate. If we're going to kick seven bells out of each other let's just bloody do it!" At that point the Scraper spit at her. A feral smile then came to Lady's face, "alright tossbag. As I am not a proper lady, _that_ I understood perfectly." At that point the Scrapper stepped in and swung at her. Lady stood her ground, snapped up a martial arts forearm block with her functioning arm to deflect the Scrappers punch before whirling her entire body about, her good hand grabbing her bad arm to keep it from flailing about, the whirl turning into a move; a reverse spin kick that drove her booted heel into the side of the shorter Scrappers head. He lurched sideways from the force of the blow; blood and teeth exploding out of his mouth; somehow he kept to his feet, staggering back. Lady raised an eyebrow—_bloody hell! These guys are just as tough as they look!_ With a simple step forward, Lady delivered a sharp front kick which drove her boot deep into the Scrappers midsection bending him double. He slowly sagged down toward his knees but he was struggling to stay on her feet. Lady growled "enough already" as she angrily stepped in and past the bent-in-agony Scrapper ending the confrontation with a downward/backward elbow strike with her good arm against the back of the man's head/neck dumping the Scrapper into an inert heap.

Jayne held onto the hand/arm with the knife as the dog pile he was in the middle went down. He felt that arm break under his weight even as the knife in that hand went deeper into his side, driven by the force of his own fall as he came down on top of that arm. He heard its owner scream. As he fell, Jayne's head cracked against the side of the pool table. Things went dim.

Mal fought the darkness because to submit was to die. He jerked forward, lurching to unsteady feet to put some distance between him and the threat behind him only to be grabbed by the back of his shoulders and tossed sideways. He crashed back down onto the floor but at least he had turned enough to see his attacker, it was the co-leader back up. Mal blocked a kick to his face with his arms, the force/pain from the blow to lancing up them right into his body. He focused on that pain, launching himself up and forward. One jab to his attackers jaw, followed up by cross to that same jaw sent the co-leader reeling back giving _Serenity's_ Captain a moment to get his own head clear.

Wash didn't even look to see if the man on top of his wife went down. He tried to go limp in order to fall at his attackers feet in an attempt to get them to back off a little but one had a good hold on the Pilot's shoulder and Wash was spun around as he went down, catching a cross to his jaw. The force of the blow knocked him down onto his back. At the same Zoe was pushing herself clear of the second brother-in-law who was definitely down and out after her husband's kick. She turned about and sprang like a tigress at the one who had just hit her husband. Two solid roundhouses into the back of this one's head from the Soldiers fists sent that one staggering as she turned toward the second one in time to take a hit from him across her face.

Jayne roared against the darkening and attempted to stand, attempted to shake those who were holding him. His feet staggered/shuffled as a club just missed his head, striking him hard at the base of his neck. One of his feet got caught up in a body of someone under him, the body of the first knife wielder that Jayne had knocked out. Jayne lost his balance and started to fall. As he did so, Jayne's own arm reached out and found one of his attackers close by his side, he thought it was the one that he had just jerked off of his back in the process of trying to regain his feet. The Merc grabbed hold of as much clothing as he could and _yanked_, pulling that attacker along with him—pulling that one past him, hurling that Scrapper, with all the force that Jayne could muster, assisted by the fact that the Scrapper hadn't completely gained his feet and had gone off balance as soon as Jayne had grabbed him allowing Jayne to _throw_ that one face first right into the side of the pool table with enough force to crash the tables hologram system as well as the Scrapper himself.

Wash managed to make it to his knees, realizing that his first attacker having been knocked down by Zoe was also just getting up on his knees in front of the Pilot at arm's length. The Scrapper threw a punch which the Pilot ducked. A second punch followed which hit Wash's raised forearm. "Owwwww!" the Pilot cried out pulling back and shaking the arm to dispel the sting of the hit. The Scrapper looked at Wash in incredulous surprise—allowing Wash to come out with an unexpected jab with his other hand that caught the Scrapper right between his eyes causing stars. Wash pulled back that hand, shaking it as the pain shot up his arm, calling in an alarmed tone as he did so, "fingers, fingers, oh fingers—"

Squaring off with her husband's second attacker, Zoe blocked twice before she threw a punch that missed. She ducked under her Scrappers return blow and blocked the follow-up allowing her to lay in a one-two combination that drove the Scrapper back. She came in to press her attack, getting through a feeble block in order to land a powerful cross that sent her opponent down but not out.

Mal came to his feet, vision clearing enough to see that there were two Scrappers before him. The one he had been getting the best of prior to the blow from behind plus the co-leader who had given that blow. _Serenity's_ Captain looked at them, smiled a bloody mouthed smile and asked, "you guys ready to give up?" In response the co-leader charged . . . right into a straight arm shot right to the face that sent numbing shock through Mal's arm but also caused the co-leader to stop . . . stagger . . . eyes rolled back . . . before collapsing at Mal's feet. Mal's face had turned hard, "might want to think again."

The smaller one who Mal had been getting the better of prior to the attack from the rear was enraged from both the fact that Mal had gotten the better of him earlier along with what had just happened to the co-leader. He raised a fist, letting out a blood curdling rebel yell as he charged.

Wash's Scrapper shook of the effects of the Pilot's blow, lurching up onto his feet. He looked directly ahead of him, realizing that the Scrapper who was his younger brother was flat out on the floor, the tall long-haired woman standing over him, doing something with her dangling arm. With a roar of rage and fright, this Scrapper, losing all interest in the Pilot launched himself at the tall woman.

Jayne slashed an arm/elbow back behind him, striking 'something' on the Scrapper behind him. It was the one who had tackled him, the first club wielder. The something was the Scrappers nose and the nose smash caused the Scrapper to partially let go of Jayne, a move barely in time it seemed for the Scrapper's arm with the club smashed down where Jayne's head had been moments before. At the same time Jayne's other hand went down and found the groin of that same club wielder. A scream accompanied the vicious squeeze and jerk that Jayne administered. The Merc felt the club wielder completely release him allowing Jayne to kick and lurch forward right over the the bodies (the first knife wielder, the second knife wielder whose arm he had broken and the Scrapper he had smashed into the side of the table) under him. There was an opening right in front of Jayne allowing him to get under the pool table and continuing with a rapid crawl right through out to the other side. Scrambling up onto his feet, Jayne turned about to see his opponent. It was the last club wielder, somehow getting up on his feet despite the groin shot, pure murder livid on his twisted face as he came around the end of the pool table with the club raised to strike.

Lady, who had been in the process of shoving her useless arm down into her jeans to anchor it looked up to see the Scrapper, the brother of the one at her feet charge towards her. She ducked under his wild swing, dropped all the way down, supporting herself on her one good arm/forearm, she snapped her entire lower body around like a Russian Cossack dancer, her 'upper' leg aimed to strike the Scrapper directly behind the knees, buckling the Scrappers legs out from under him. He hit the floor hard hard, falling backwards on his butt as she rolled up onto her knees, lurching forward, literally 'leaping' from her knees to plant the palm of her good hand onto his face as he tried to rise, using her weight, momentum and gravity to smash his head down into the floor for a K/O. Her hand gripping his face like a claw, she repeated the motion a single time, her strength actually lifting half of his body off of the floor before slamming him back down. After how her last one kept refusing to go down she was determined to make sure that this Scrapper was _out_!

Jayne caught the raised arm with the club before the Scrapper could bring it down, the blow the Merc delivered as a follow up bending the Scrapper double with a punch deep into the man's gut. The Scrapper tried not to fold up, which allowed Jayne to get in a quick jab to the Scrappers sternum which stopped the Scrapper for just a moment allowing the Merc to deliver a massive uppercut that almost sent the Scrapper head over tail into a back flip, out before he hit the floor.

Zoe was keeping an eye on the multiple fallen figures who had gone after both herself and her husband as she helped that same husband painfully to his feet. A couple of them were not completely 'out' but Zoe didn't think they they had much fight they had left in them. However, at the same time she wasn't about to let her guard down.

Lady gained her feet, scanning those in front of her. Then something made her move, she ducked and feinted to the side, whirling about with a dancers grace to face the direction her back had been. She found herself facing the two young men, the two who had been the ones that Mal and Jayne kicked off of the table. They had been watching from the sidelines. Lady realized that they were in their very early teens, made to look older by their Scrapper's clothing. They were now entering the fight after a long personal battle with their fears. What Lady's ears had heard was the sound of the chair in the tall, lanky ones hands as it approached the back of her head. Her evasion had caused him to smash the chair into the floor, his body off balance, falling to the floor with the chair. The short chunky one stalled behind his friend, fear of Lady naked on his face.

Just over a bit, Mal was just in the process of taking the the smaller ones attack, sidestepping like a matador as the Scrapper charged by, slamming a palm blow to the side of the passing head, grabbing the stunned Scrappers shirt at the shoulder to spin him around before Mal's final roundhouse smashed the smaller one clear across the floor and into the wall.

Jayne stood over the pile of bodies next to the pool table. The knife wielder whose arm he had landed on and broken was trying to pull himself to his feet using the pool table for support. Jayne felt the warmth of his own blood seeping down into his pants from the wound in his side—and used a single fast kick fully into the Scrappers chest, sending him sprawling back and still.

In the quiet, as much quiet as there could be for noise still rolled through the pool area from the main part of the bar which was ignoring the 'unpleasantness' that was occurring around the one pool table, the feeling that it was 'over' came through, allowing the rest of the half dozen tables in the pool area to resume their games as if nothing had happened.

Mal wiped more blood out of his mouth before he took a look to his left. Zoe had her husband up on his feet, Wash's battered and bleeding head probably looking very similar to his own. He looked back beyond Zoe and Wash to Kaylee, Simon and River, noting how River was wild-eyed and being tightly held by her brother, causing Mal to wonder what had happened that he had missed. He'd find out later.

Mal then looked around to the pool table and Jayne. The Merc was leaning into his side and Mal could see him holding a hand tightly against his waist above the rear of his hip. But Jayne's eyes were clear and looking about for any further trouble.

Mal turned about checking as well. He found that Lady was behind him, still at the edge of the crowd. It was difficult to tell, but to Mal it looked as if she had one of her arms at a weird angle across the front of her body. As her back was to him, he couldn't see her face but it looked as if she was watching the rest of the room for further trouble from that direction. What caused Mal to slightly raise one eyebrow was the fact that the two young Scrappers where on their knees before her, their heads bowed as if ashamed.

Mal shook it off; there were things that had to be done. He motioned to the Merc to come over. When Jayne reached him, Mal muttered into his ear, "Get the others ready to get outta here," The Merc muttered something dark and dangerous before sliding behind Mal toward the others. Mal continued watching, wondering why other employees of the bar weren't coming over to avenge the downing of the duty manager and his assistants. It wasn't as if he was going to complain if they didn't but it added to his worry as to any possible repercussions coming down the trail later.

In a few moments, Jayne walked past in front of Mal, giving his Captain a nod but keeping his eyes on his intended route out through the crowded bar. Zoe and Wash came next, the Mate keeping a steadying hold on one of her husband's arms. A tight group consisting of Simon with a firm hold on River with Kaylee having a firm hold on Simon then passed by. With that, Mal stepped in behind them, calling in a low but carrying voice, "Lady, let's go—"

Lady nodded and took a half-step/turn toward him—

But then she stopped. She was looking down at the two huddled junior Scrappers on the floor in front of her. Mal heard her murmuring something to them in a forceful tone. Mal was only able to hear words she stressed to them, words like 'honor' and 'warrior' and 'duty'.

"Lady?" Mal called again louder, his own tone stressing that she had better get her butt in gear.

She nodded but continued to talk. Mal was about to reach over and grab her by her good arm when she abruptly finished her turn movement and moving rapidly despite her stiff, painful gait, she followed in the wake of the rest of _Serenity's_ crew.

Mal took a final look around, at the Scrapper's who were only now making moves to painfully drag their beaten bodies to their feet, at the other people in the bar who were pointedly watching him without actually looking at him—

Mal then turned and headed after his people, a big false smile plastered on his face. He wore the smile for inside he was more than a little upset. It would be quite a while before he would be able to come back to this establishment for his favorite _hanyu pinyin_ again.

* * *

The entire group hustled outside, not even taking the time to strap on their weapons as they did so. With Jayne in the lead and Mal bringing up the tail, they moved directly across the fairly busy street into an alley cattycornered to the front of the bar they had just left. There they took the time to don and check their weapons.

"You figure we're gonna have trouble getting back to the boat?" Jayne asked Mal after he got his holster settled and did a chamber check on his pistol.

"I'd say that we should be okay," was Mal's reply as he did the same thing with his own weapon. "Them Scrapper's will take some time to get the cobwebs cleared outta their ears and check on their wounded. Should be enough."

"What about the guy Lady said was eyein you?" Zoe asked, moving in close with a low tone to keep the question quiet.

"Kinda hard to say bein that we don't know anything," was Mal's answer to that. "Right now, let's move on through all these alleys over to the other street. Take a couple of the twists and turns so it's not easy for us to be followed. If we do it quick enough, we can make our way back quiet like."

Zoe nodded, moving back over to where her husband sat on a crate, looking more than a little out of it.

Mal looked around at the rest. Simon had his arm tightly around the shoulders of a wild-eyed River. A very frightened looking Kaylee had her hands tightly around the Doctor's other arm, her head swiveling around almost frantically as if worried about enemies attacking them from all sides.

Mal looked to Jayne who met his eyes. Mal nodded off toward where the alley ran into a junction of several others going off in all directions, the Merc nodding his understanding as he started off, one hand resting nonchalantly on the butt of his pistol. As the Merc drew away, Mal was able to see that blood from the wound in the Merc's side was visible down Jayne's pants leg—but Mal's experience told him that the amount of blood visible meant that while the wound was nasty, it wasn't life threatening or even debilitating. Jayne would stay on top of things for the trip back.

Zoe followed Jayne, jerking her head to Simon and Kaylee as she went by, one of her own arms around her husband's shoulder to steady him now that the pain was really coming to the Pilot. Wash's feet were kind of shuffling but Mal had seen the look on the Pilot's face—there was a determination not to be the one to slow the group down. Mal knew that one way or another, Wash would keep up the pace. Following along behind them, Simon had to kind of propel River in the direction he wanted her to go, his sister more than kind of digging her heels in while maintaining an angry silence. Kaylee, still 'anchored' to Simon's arm, came along with him like a boat under tow.

Mal took a quick look back over his shoulder at the door to the bar—no sign of any pursuit yet—not that he really thought that there would be any—

Something was nagging at his awareness—he was forgetting something.

He looked around over his other shoulder—

And cursed himself for he had almost forgot something.

Lady was standing barely around the corner on the sidewalk next to the mouth of the alley. Somehow, she was managing a 'natural' stance, making it look like her injured arm wasn't really injured, her back to the wall as she calmly looked back and forth up and down the street.

Mal belatedly realized that she was scanning each and every person on that street for potential trouble—

So effectively blending into that background, that Mal had literally forgotten that she was with the group.

_Now just where in tarnation did she learn to do that? That's real high-stakes tracking talent. Blends right in with the background—wouldn't know she was there ifn I didn't know her. Is there anything she's not good at?_

Feeling a little annoyed at himself for forgetting her, at the same time feeling a lot annoyed at Lady for being so good at what she was doing, he slid up to the corner of the alley/sidewalk, saying quietly, "let's go Lady, time to get back to the boat."

"A moment sir, third building on my right across the street, the blue one with the green sign, man with the red shirt is the bloke who was giving you the hard look inside."

Despite everything else, Mal felt a spark of interest. He popped his head out quickly—but being that he too had more than a little experience in man-tracking, he managed to get a look at the person of Lady's interest even though it didn't look like he had glanced in that direction—

"Let's go," he said again to Lady as he pulled back, her immediately following him with a real smooth slide around the corner into the alley—

Where he got a real clear look at her face.

The only place he had _ever_ seen a face that kind of focused concentration was the bomb disposal guys during the war.

He pushed it to the side of his mind and he led Lady in a half trot to catch up with the others, the rest of his mind trying in its own way to concentrate on—

"Sir?" came her single word question.

"Don't know," was his reply. "Man does look familiar—but to throw your own words back at you, somethin tells me that I've seen him before but that he's only an outrider—one who was with and workin for somebody else I was dealin with." After a moment he added, "can't say just who that somebody would be at this point."

"Well, that at least would probably mean that at least it's not personal," was Lady's observation—which caused Mal to glance at her for the tone of her voice had gone _very_ tight.

Lady had gone pale. But her pace next to him as they jogged down the alley did not fade—

That's what caused Mal to realize, "whoa," he called as he came to an abrupt halt. "If that arm's bothering you, don't hurt it worse by joggin. Zoe'll wait for us at the street."

Lady stopped next to him, turned that very concentrated gaze upon him and said in a cool, level tone, "right now sir, there is just the pair of us, there is the potential of us being cut-off from the others and if we are, you are the only one who is armed with an offensive weapon and if it became close in, my hand-to-hand capacity would be limited at best. With all those kinds of considerations, a little bit of haste versus the discomfort of my injury is not an issue. I appreciate the concern sir but I'm not fragile. As I simply can't seem to be able to use your bloody ching/chong/chang language to express myself the way all of you do in times like this, I'll stick to my own flippin vernacular which is, _I'm not gonna fuckin break_ . . . so let's get back with the others." With that, she turned away from him to resume her jog down the alley.

Mal almost tripped over his own feet—only the _command_ in Lady's tone kept him upright. It also meant that he could give only one answer.

"Yes ma'am."

_One dangerous woman—_


	19. Coasting

Chapter Nineteen – Coasting

* * *

In the end they made it back to the boat without further incident. It had still been early evening when they had come out of the bar and there had been a fair number of everyday folk hanging out or on their way somewhere on normal, reasonable business leaving the streets to be fairly safe. Planets like Beylix, although poor and unsophisticated compared to some other worlds in the Kalidasa system (let alone any Core world) were still fairly civilized as any planet in The Rim. On most such worlds the primary people inhabiting them were upright and steady folk like farmers, miners, store owners, true tradesmen (like Belgium) and others who were just out to make a living as decent people (Scrappers didn't count as civilized in Mal's mind). Now that didn't mean that the place was perfect. But it did mean that it would be long after dark and into the early morning when groups of those miners and scrappers got ugly with drink and rivalries both personal and toward other groups.

Now, safely aboard and buttoned up in _Serenity_, Simon finished the weaving the wounds in Jayne's side. It had been ragged with multiple incisions but none of them had been very deep. It had been hard to knit together the way the lacerations criss/crossed each other but it had been no different or difficult than many that Simon had seen when he had been involved as a surgeon in ER work. He also checked Jayne's spine, cervical vertebrae and clavicle—the billyclub blows had caused bruising—one had been hard enough to rupture the skin—but amazingly the bones weren't broken, causing Simon to come away from the exam slightly amazed that the Mercenary actually had minimal damage from these particular attacks.

"Any signs of infection, let me know right away," the Doctor told the Mercenary as he finished with the dressing over the wounds. "I put in plenty of antibiotics in case the blade wasn't clean but if there were small pieces of metal shavings or such, it could cause a problem."

"Thanks Doc," Jayne acknowledged as he turned and slid off of the exam table, reaching over to gather his shirt from the counter, grimacing with disgust when he saw all the blood stains (which cause him to take a quick glance down at his pants causing an identical reaction). As he shrugged into it, he looked across to the sideboard where Zoe was gently rubbing a topical relief gel into Wash's face. Jayne snorted; Wash was perhaps the most 'beaten' looking one of their group but none of his injuries would do anything more than make his face look like a black/blue/purple batch of balloons for a couple of weeks. As far as the Pilot's wife, Zoe's dark complexion hid most of the discoloring, only the swelling around her jaw and cheeks was readily visibly, although there were definite 'finger marks' on her throat and her voice was horse from the swelling to her larynx. Even so, what she displayed wasn't even in the running when compared to that of her husband. Jayne gave a second amused snort at the sight of the Pilot and then headed out of the Infirmary. A bottle was waiting in his bunk which would do more for the aches and pains than any of the Doc's pills.

Simon looked to see how Zoe was doing with Wash then gave glance at Mal, who was applying a roll-on antiseptic/pain reliever to the injuries to his lips and gums. _Serenity's_ Captain was also well on his way to having very colorful features, starting with the huge goose egg on his forehead. In addition, his nose and lips were a couple of sizes too big while one eye wasn't far away from swelling closed.

The Doctor kind of shook his head. He was more than slightly amazed at it all. Considering how things had looked to him from the sidelines, the odds had been ridiculously stacked against those from _Serenity_ when the whole thing had first started. He really wasn't sure if it had been luck or skill that had kept any of them from having more injuries—more serious injuries than what they had managed to come out with. Still—as usual things weren't really all 'normal' either.

Satisfied that 'everything else' was under control, Simon then stepped out of the Infirmary looking to the table in the Lounge where sitting on top of that table was a pale stoic-faced Lady with a worried looking Kaylee at her side.

"Now will you come in?" Simon asked with a slightly exasperated tone, gesturing with one hand toward the Infirmary. Lady nodded and came slowly to her feet with Kaylee by her side, hands ready to do—the Mechanic didn't know what she would do if something suddenly happened to the bigger woman but she had to think she could do something.

"A bleeding wound is much more critical than a dislocation Doctor," Lady said mildly although the tightness in her tone betrayed her underlying condition. She moved stiffly as if she was still in pain from other places where her body had been abused, but her tone was unchanged as she added, "if there had been trouble on our way back, I probably would have shoved it back into place on my own."

Lady came into the Infirmary, eyes locked on the exam table, moving to seat herself on the edge of the table, while Simon, muttering under his breath over Lady's personal medical opinion, positioned the Infirmary exam ray. In moments he was looking at the screen, shaking his head. "That guy did a number to you. Some local hemorrhaging, several ligaments have torn—doesn't look like the rotator cuff or the joint itself is damaged however. As far as nerve damage, do you feel any tingling in your forearm or hand?"

Lady shook her head at the question causing Simon to nod. "Then we can hope that there's nothing that won't heal itself." His tone conveyed that he was leaving unsaid any comment about Lady's strange ability to heal or his relief that he wouldn't have to attempt to treat her with its possible strange/unknown reactions/consequences. He moved the scanner out of the way prior to looking over and asking, "Zoe, if you would assist me?"

The First Mate looked up, her eyes questioning. "Me?" added the voice to the questioning as one of Zoe's fingers added extra emphasis by pointing at her own face with a gestured 'me'.

Simon waved her over causing the First Mate to give a slightly miffed look at her husband before she moved over toward the exam table. Ever since she had assisted Simon in taking out the bullet which the Bounty Hunter Jubal Early had placed into the Doctors leg, Simon had seemed to have come to the conclusion that she actually 'liked and desired' to do medical things like stick tongs into bloody holes and pull out bullets. She had been a hardcore Browncoat after all.

The reality—

Simon showed Zoe how she wanted her to wrap herself around Lady to hold Lady as immobile as possible. With her face scrunched in a kinda 'oh gross' look, Zoe entwined herself around the injured woman with a muttered, "sorry about this."

"Its fine," Lady assured her. "Getting it over with is the best possible solution."

With Zoe in position and Mal and Wash looking on, Simon set himself before he firmly took hold of Lady's dangling arm and started—

'POP'

"Ugh," Wash grunted as he wanted to look away but couldn't. Mal winced.

"Hold on Zoe," Simon ordered for Lady had turned as white as a sheet and was swaying slightly. Simon continued to feel around Lady's shoulder for several moments before turning to Mal and gesturing toward the counter. Mal retrieved the pad that Simon had wanted which he wrapped around Lady's shoulder through her armpit (thankful that Lady had made all her shirts sleeveless which meant he didn't have to cut anything off or have her remove her top) , nodding at Zoe to release as he did so. "This pack will alternate hot and cold," Simon explained. "It should take care of the swelling. I'm sorry I can't do anything for your pain or the damaged ligaments. We'll just have to see what your body does with them." With that he picked up an arm sling and started to put it on Lady. "So right now immobility is the best for it."

Zoe was now standing next to Lady with a steadying arm on her other shoulder. "Did the guy that was holding you do this on purpose or was it accidental because you were struggling with him?" she asked.

Lady took a deep, shuddering breath before saying, "he didn't do anything other than try to hold me down. I did this to myself."

Several sets of eyes flashed about the Infirmary before Wash said tentatively through very swollen lips, "you mean you're fighting against him caused him to dislocate your shoulder." He said it as a statement rather than a question.

Lady, whose head was lowered to avoid things from spinning. "No. I needed to get out of that hold as quickly as I could so I forced myself, forced the shoulder and the joint through the hold. When it popped, it started him and I was able to break free."

Kaylee paled a little. "You mean you intentionally did that to yourself?"

"Not by choice," Lady said, "but because of need. He had the hold on too well. Must be because of his bar bouncer training. Unless I took the damage to get out of it I probably would have stayed pinned."

Kaylee looked more than a little uncomfortable as she looked from Mal to Zoe to Wash waiting for one of them to join him in that discomfort.

"That's . . . pretty extreme," Zoe managed to say carefully. She noticed the glances that statement brought her from Mal and her husband. She made a face at them then looked back to Lady asking, "was that a spur of the moment thing, or is it something that you have contemplated should such an event ever happen to you?"

It took a moment before Lady slowly shook her head. "I . . . don't know."

That just left an uncomfortable silence. After a moment, Mal asked, "are we all done here Doctor? There's plenty of work still lookin us in the eye."

Simon nodded and started to move about as if to put the Infirmary back into ready state. "Yes," he answered, "Everyone is as well as I can make them at this point."

"Right," Mal said, folding his arms as he looked at his First Mate and Pilot. "Zoe, I 'spect that there's gonna be a whole bunch of those Scrapper's out lookin to tack our hides to any barn wall they can find. See what you can do to get the supplies we ordered as quick as you can. I'm afraid that we're gonna be stuck here inside of Belgium's compound for as long as we're here."

Zoe nodded asking, "you want me to let Belgium know what happened?"

"He probably already heard somethin but make sure that he understands what _really_ happened so no rumor riles him into kickin us out 'for all the work is done."

"On it," she confirmed even as she turned toward Wash, taking him by the arm as he started to hobble out of the Infirmary, every movement accented by some kind of sound or exclamation.

Kaylee held out a helping hand toward Lady asking, "you want to go to your cabin? Are you going to need help getting down the ladder?"

"I want you," Mal said in a fatherly but forceful tone to the Engineer, "to go through a systems check on all the lines and circuits that had been affected by the work Belgium's men have started. If there's somethin that we need put back together in order to get flyin, we need to know so it can be fixed by ourselves if need be. We might have to dodge out sooner than expected."

The look on Kaylee's face spoke rebellion and her, "yes sir" was a little bit surly. But after giving both Lady and Simon a flash of a smile, she too exited the Infirmary.

With a deep breath, Lady pushed herself off of the exam table. She held her one hand on the table to steady herself but she appeared to be coming out of any affect the injury may have given her.

"Thank you Doctor," she said to Simon. "Is it permissible for me to return to my duties?"

Simon looked at her with a small frown but after a moment, "well, by your own words, you seem disinclined to follow any advice about taking it easy for the rest of the day." He gave a knowing glance toward Mal adding, "in that at least you're no different than any of the others aboard." Looking back to her, "but both keep the hot/cold pack on it and the arm itself in the sling for at least five or six days and if you have to use the arm for any particular thing, nothing above shoulder level. Get someone else to do that kind of reaching."

"I understand," Lady told him with a small smile. "And I'll do my best to behave. Something tells me that I made a promise to several people that I would start obeying Doctors orders."

Simon snorted with another glance at Mal, "well, could you pass that around a little?"

With another nod toward the Doctor and one toward Mal, Lady left the Infirmary, headed back toward the ladder to the upper deck. Mal looked to Simon, "is there anything that you need to replace if we haveta get out?"

Simon shook his head. "No. Over the period that I've been aboard, I've learned to stockpile supplies to repair the damage from brawls." He gave a shrug adding, "not to mention beatings, gunshots, knifings, injuries from psychotic Bounty Hunters, ears cut off during torture by mad Crime Lords; the usual and normal everyday types of things that my time in the ER prepared me for."

"Well, we appreciate the way you earn your keep Doctor." With a nod of his own, Mal headed out.

He too took the aft ladder to the upper deck. Once up he headed forward into the Dining Area were Lady was standing with a resigned look on her face at the displaced dining table and strewn about chairs as well as the debris on the deck that had fallen out of the overhead when Belgium's men had opened it up. She had her good hand raised up in front of her—it looked as if she was nibbling at the tip of one of her fingers—

"I'll have Jayne put a cork in his bottle and come in to help clean up," Mal told her as he noted that it was a lot worse than he had expected. He also noted that Lady had immediately snapped her good hand down to her side as if she hadn't wanted him to see her with her finger in her mouth.

"If it's all the same to you Captain, I would rather do it myself," was Lady's slightly tart reply.

"Now," Mal started in a mollifying tone, "he'll get use to you eventually. He just needs, as do the rest of us, work through some of the strange things about you."

Lady's head swiveled giving Mal what could only be called an apprehensive look. "And how is he going to do that when I can't seem to get a grip on those same 'strange things' myself." She looked back to her front, taking a long slow breath. "It seems that just when part of me gets settled with my . . . issues, something else rears its ugly head." Her face again snapped around to look at Mal, "did I do anything in the fight after I broke out of the hold? Did I take down the guy who had the hold on me or did someone do it for me?"

Mal blinked. "You don't remember what happened then?" Lady shook her head no. Mal considered this a moment before, "well, I was a little too busy to really pay attention but my—my—what's it called?—situational awareness—?" he looked up at Lady who after a moment nodded her agreement with the correctness of the term. "Well," Mal went on, "as far as I remember you took the guy down by yourself. I think you took down one or two others but that's just an impression." He waited a beat before stating, "you 'blanked' again."

Lady gave him a little nod even though her eyes had gone inward. "I have no memory of anything after I forced through the hold." She looked back up into Mal's eyes, "the next thing I remember was when we were just coming out of that alley onto the street that led here to Belgium's compound." Her eyes went inward again. "Everything in between is blank. I know time went by," Lady's head shook worriedly, "but I didn't remember anything." She seemed to consider for a moment before adding, "even the period leading up to that; I didn't quite . . . blank . . . but everything after my pulling Kaylee down onto the floor; it's . . . fuzzy I guess would be good word for it."

Mal's eyes had narrowed. "That's . . . too bad. Cause I wanted to ask you 'bout what you were saying to those Scrapper kids—what you were sayin to them—something 'bout 'warrior', 'duty', and 'honor'."

Lady looked up with the expression of being a little shocked. After a moment she managed to ask, "I was telling them _what?_"

"You were tellin them somethin 'bout 'warrior', 'honor' and 'duty'." He gave her a look that conveyed that he was annoyed by this memory lapse because, "I was really hopin that you were gonna be able to tell me what the 'warrior' thing was 'cause it really got my attention."

As if her head was very heavy, Lady slowly dropped her chin almost to her chest. "I don't know what you're talking about." Her left hand came up for her to rub the back of that hand against her right cheek. "I wish I did. Something tells me that this should be important to me." Her head came back enough for Mal to see her eyes; furious thoughts were going on behind them, "very important to me."

Mal waited a moment before, "so you really don't remember talking to those last two young Scrappers? It looked as if you were . . . (he shrugged) lecturing 'em. I mean, you wouldn't come the first two times I called you to follow me. You were downright serious about whatever it was you were tellin them."

Lady could only shake her head again, her thoughts still racing. "I really don't remember anything after my forcing myself through the hold."

Mal considered that a moment before remembering the moment of confusion on Lady's face, "and why would you lose your memory in a fight?" He sounded . . . skeptical.

Lady could only stare down at the mess on the deck, unable to come up with an answer.

* * *

Simon checked the injector for a third time, then wrapped as much of his other hand around it as he could. _As if she doesn't know its coming_ he thought. With that, he slid the door to River's room open.

His sister was sitting on her bed, knees pulled all the way up to her chin but with her pillow stuck between her legs and her body. Her whole body was rocking back and forth in an angry, jerky way. Simon could hear her muttering to herself in sequence to her motions.

Simon had never seen River agitated to this extent. Certainly she had had her outbreaks of hysteria-like phases especially right after he rescued her from The Academy along with the many other times during their initial stay aboard _Serenity_ (the famous 'cutting' of Jayne being the most well known) when she had a sudden reaction to some stimulus (the majority of which Simon had only of late had recognized as possibly being a result of her telepathic abilities—which made him more than wonder just what it was that Jayne had been thinking prior to River's attack) to which she had a violent unforeseen reaction.

After so many examples and so many incidences, Simon was wondering when he was going to have to face what he didn't want to face.

It was difficult.

Simon had only the minimal training in mental health medicine, the general studies offered in medical school for the freshman student, the basic course for ER specialist, he had declined to take the intermediate course for Trauma work; ninety five percent of all mental health issues in The Verse were addresses in the childhood years so the specialists were almost all pediatric and general family medicine. As any mental health issue in teens or adults were considered to be 'social' in nature (dating, school, work/family stress), these were addressed by Family Practice. As a part of the social reorganization that had occurred when humanity reached The Verse, the actual medical field of psychiatry had been done away with; the functions being absorbed by the pediatric or family practitioner. As a Trauma/ER Surgeon, Simon's training had focused on recognizing the symptoms of such things in patients and/or attending family members with the emphasis geared to only maintaining any 'situation' encountered until the proper Ped or FP specialist could be summoned.

Since his rescue of his sister, Simon had studied what he could access on The Cortex without having to log into systems and databases through which the Alliance could backtrack. He could only now recognize the censorious aspect of his society by what little information he could find within The Cortex without having to identify who he—or the patient was with verifiable identification required. What he had managed to find often left him with the feeling of 'a little information is a dangerous thing'. He wondered if it was an intentional trap put in place to cause an adverse reaction in a patient which then would have to be brought to a medical professional's attention . . . which of course would also mean notification of government authorities as well.

But within what he'd already known and what he had been able to find out, he was determined to do the best that he could for his sister. The windfall of narcotics that the _Serenity_ crew had harvested from St Lucy's while he had been examining River in detail had also helped for he had laid claim to everything within that haul of drugs that could possibly be of assistance to him and her. With these as foundations, he had started his treatment regime for his sister.

That didn't mean that he easily recognized something which he hadn't seen before—and he had never seen River quite like what she was displaying at the moment.

Simon squatted down next to the bed. When he had walked in, he could tell that River had been saying something. But until he leaned in closer, he couldn't tell what it was.

"They-needed-help-I-can-fight-they-needed-me-to-fight-they-needed-my-help-let-me-help-I-can-fight-let-me-fight-those-people-they-planned-on-me-fighting-they-told-me-I-would-be-able-to-fight-why-cant-I-help-fight—"

"River?"

She stopped as if a switch turned 'off'. She was motionless for a moment, then her head swiveled, her eyes accusing Simon—

"Inside me is a seed that will someday blossom but it needs to be watered. _You_ wouldn't let me grow!"

Simon considered for a moment. It was obvious that this was a reaction from his pulling her out of the fight in the bar. He was beginning to wonder that if doing so had—he was beginning to—it was like—

When things had settled from the Bounty Hunter Early's invasion of _Serenity_, Simon had gone back with gentle intent to get Kaylee to explain every detail she could about what had happened with her and River in the Cargo Bay after he and Book were pulled out of place during their invasion of Niska's Skyplex. Based on that information as well as several, long disjointed talks with River over her handling of Early, Simon was now wondering if what he was seeing—Rivers current agitated reaction—was because he had 'interrupted' her by pulling her out of the fight in the bar. If he was right, if she came out of the two prior incidences (the Skyplex and Early) lucid and comprehending because she had 'completed the programming (or script or directive or whatever)', whereas her current state was because that same 'programming' had been interrupted by him when he pulled her out of the fight.

Just what was the Academy 'programming' into his sister? What did that part of her angry soliloquy . . . 'they planned on me fighting-they told me I would be able to fight' mean? Was she being trained to—was she being programmed and manipulated to be some kind of fighter like Zoe or Jayne? Why her? And the psychic abilities that had erupted from inside of his sister? Had a 'seed' been planted inside of her?

And what would it take for it to 'blossom'?

Finally—what should he do to keep that 'blossom' from happening?

And just as important . . . if the 'flower' was not allowed to 'blossom' . . . would that then kill the plant?

He really didn't know and a part of him shivered because he didn't have a clue how to counter his ignorance—

All he could do was inject his sister with a double dose of the new medication and hoped that it worked.

* * *

"HAY—HAY—HAY—" came the breathy exclamations of pain.

Zoe lifted the icepack off of her husband's face, giving him a look as if he was a child. "If you let it settle, after a minute the pain will go away."

"I know," he kind of half whined. "But it's really cold. Can you temper it with a towel or something?"

She gave Wash another look before she rolled off of their bed to get the requested towel. Sometimes she wasn't sure if he did these things to get sympathy. It wasn't like she didn't give him any, but in this case her own face was also swollen and bruised (although not to the degree his was), so she would think that a little mutual sympathy would be in order.

"Thank you," he told her in advance causing some of her pique to retreat. Zoe got the towel from next to the head and wrapped it around the ice pack. Turning around, she took another look at her husband who was lying on the bed in just his purple boxers. Wash's head and shoulders looked like a herd of wild horses had stomped all over it. Zoe glanced at her own face in the mirror. No—she was nowhere near as bad as he was. She could also feel where the rest of her body was reacting to the fight, her shoulders from where she had been pinned, her throat—

It still, even all together it was nowhere close to what her husband was currently experiencing.

Her husband—

Wash wasn't a fighter except at need. Only when something really pushed his buttons, like what had happened with Mal and that insane madman Niska did he allow his fighter to come out. Zoe knew and understood that. She also knew something else.

He had spent the entire fight trying to get to her. Trying to help her at the cost of himself.

Zoe had been told about how her husband would not leave her side when she was injured during the big engine blowout until the Captain literally slammed him into the bulkhead. She knew it was _her_ back, not Jayne's that Wash had been covering when they had invaded Niska's Skyplex.

Zoe felt the rest of her annoyance evaporate. He wasn't a fighter. Pain and injury was not an everyday possibility in his life.

Zoe slipped back into the bed holding the ice pack at ready. She slid up next to Wash—

Just the tiniest peck on the side of his head—

"Do it again," he said.

* * *

Inara lay on her back, staring at the dark ceiling of her shuttle.

She was currently alone—between clients—not enough time to return to _Serenity_ before the next client arrived—which left her with very quiet time to do nothing but think—

And wonder—

And worry.

Thinking about her life, her secrets and lies, her wants and desires, her denials and rejections—

Wondering about future, wondering about how the others felt about it all, wondering just where her intuition was leading her, wondering about the mysteries about Lady—

Worrying about about Kaylee—

Worrying about Mal.

Why—

She accepted the cycle of suffering and rebirth that encompassed the World—

Even though, she really didn't—the rebirth part at least.

For that would mean that you had to die. She didn't want to die—ever.

Even if she couldn't live.

It was so confusing.

It was worse than confusing—it was a lot like Mal. On the surface, what you saw was what you got. Underneath—

Nothing but contradictions.

She _hated_ contradictions.

Along with secrets, lies, wants, desires, denials and rejections.

They kept one awake at night.

Thinking—wondering—worrying.

Why—?

* * *

"Kaylee?"

The Engineer looked up startled. For less than a moment, she thought it was Lady sneaking up on her with that incredibly silent way that she had of moving. But just as instantly, she recognized River—who at the moment—

"What is it?" Kaylee's voice was concerned as she came to her feet. She was in the aft passageway going through the circuits as the Captain had told her. She had been at it for quite some time (although she had been so deep into it that she wasn't sure how much time had really passed although she knew that it had to be hours) and had no idea just how long River could have been standing there.

Her friend—River— looked—tired—almost exhausted—she was holding the side of her head with one hand—River's speech was slowed and slurred. If Kaylee didn't know better, she would think that River was more than a little drunk. She knew that she had been 'tired' over the last several weeks due to the new medication that Simon was giving her—but never like this.

"Can—can I go into your cabin?" River asked.

Kaylee didn't allow her frown to show—even though she knew that it wouldn't stop River from seeing her feelings. Even so—

"This'd be the third time recently," Kaylee said softly.

Just a couple of weeks ago (_about the same time River started to act so tired_ Kaylee thought), she had complained to River about having a fairly good headache. River had countered that she too had a really bad headache (_was that what was causing her to be so tired?_). At that time, Kaylee had been done with her work and had been on the way to her cabin. Due to the 'mutual' headaches, she invited River along to join her in a home remedy for headaches.

Kaylee's aunt had been a local non-medical healer. Peppermint oil over a candle had always been used in Kaylee's household for headaches. Kaylee knew that there was 'something else' in the oil as well, a arcane mixture of homemade 'stuff' created by her aunt, a heady brew to breath in that was completely masked by the peppermint aroma. Some of her other aunt's had inferred that if the Alliance had ever analyzed what was in the mix, Kaylee's healer aunt would be in for a long stay in jail but the concoction had always worked for the Engineer regardless of how intense the pain in her head had been. Kaylee therefore brought her friend along to her cabin to give the home remedy a try.

It turned out to be a great success. While it seemed to take more than double the time to work on River than it did for her—not only did it help River with her headaches, it seemed to clear the girls mind, make her somewhat more responsive and aware, more talkative (and in Kaylee's opinion more 'fun') and—River was no longer 'tired'. In the end, Kaylee had been very glad and grateful with the way River responded to the treatment.

Only now, River seemed to be doing it more and more often, asking to do it alone when Kaylee wasn't having a problem of her own. To Kaylee; she was almost afraid that River was using it to combat the tiredness which Kaylee had to wonder came from Simon's new medication. She knew that she should tell Simon about it—but she was afraid that he would get mad at her for allowing his sister to join her in a 'hick/backwoods/hillbilly/homemade remedy' with no-sound-medical-knowledge-behind-it treatment. That being said—Kaylee could also tell that River was 'not liking' the tired periods and . . . she wanted her friend to feel good and be happy. Kaylee knew that she was caught between the preverbal rock and hard place. She had decided to seek Inara's advice when the Companion returned but at the moment—

River looked terrible—

"Alright," Kaylee said with her decision. "But let me go set it up."

"Thank you," and it was obvious that River really was grateful.

* * *

His head felt like it was still ringing.

Anyway, the pain and discomfort, especially that knot on his forehead—

It really didn't matter though; the head butt had done its job.

Leaving him alive to do his job.

Thinking, wondering, worrying.

As the Captain, he had to think ahead. Think about what was coming up next, planning contingencies should something happen like Scrappers sneaking into the compound to attack the boat.

Wondering about where they should go from here, where were the jobs going to be next. Wondering if he was ever going to get the chance to pawn off a certain laser pistol, wondering just how much refit work that could be done with the proceeds from that little item.

Worrying about if the Alliance was still after his newest crew member. He was pretty well convinced that if she got her memory back that she wouldn't be a danger to them, but that didn't mean that she wasn't still a danger to the ship because of the interest the Alliance had in her.

But Mal Reynolds was also something more than the Captain of _Serenity._

He had his secrets—although the one that was closest to him was also probably the least 'secret' secret he had. That by keeping it a secret, all the two of them were doing was living a lie. The fact that the two of them could simply not acknowledge what it was that they wanted. Despite their desires, they denied and rejected not only each other's feelings and appreciations but their own as well.

As he often did whenever she was 'away' with one of her clients, he convinced himself that she was probably either sound asleep enfolded in pleasant dreams or deeply engaged in lovemaking—

His head hurt—

Why—?

* * *

Somewhere in The Core Worlds—

Another man in another bureaucratic office with its indirect lighting and clean efficient lines. The size of the office indicated that this bureaucrat must be of some importance but not of a high enough level to have windows to allow viewing of the outside world. One might think that the plain, unobtrusive man in this office might be a middle level supervisor or possibly an auditor or some such in the massive machine that ran the Core Worlds and attempted to imprint its marks on The Boarder and The Rim.

The true fact of the matter was that while the man was a bureaucrat, he did not belong to any known or listed Function or Department within the 'official' list of The Alliance. And the reason the office had no windows was to reduce the chance of surveillance or observation.

For this man and his job was very much 'Black'.

And at the moment it was not going at all as he would like it.

"I don't care if we have to find and impound every single _Firefly_ class ship out there. The vast majority of them are pirates and smugglers anyway. Doing so would certainly cut down on the riffraff that make their way in and out of The Rim."

"As attractive as that sounds," came the voice out of the speaker on his desk, a voice with no form for the video holo was always shut off whenever this person spoke directly to his minions, "it would cause far too much disruption which would draw . . . unwanted attention to our little problem."

The bureaucrat snorted. "Then how do you propose to find this one _Firefly_ among the fifteen thousand ships that we _know_ are still active let alone however many are operating without license out on The Rim; which by all logic includes the one we are _looking_ for?"

There was almost what sounded like a 'sigh' that came out of the secure Comm unit. It was followed a moment later by a resigned, "yes, I see the point. I should have seen it earlier I suppose. I was hoping that the twenty Level Two teams augmented by the one hundred Level Three assets that our Master finally managed to secure from the Top Level would be enough." There was another pause before the voice said in a more forceful tone, "I am going to make a recommendation that we pull in the Level One units and add them to the mix."

This was what the bureaucrat had been hoping for but at the same time, "some of the Level One Commanders . . . will not be happy. Some of them have been working particularly tough profiles for extended periods of time."

"It can't be helped," the voice said just as firmly. "And they will understand once they are briefed on the . . . urgency of the situation."

The bureaucrat nodded but still, "this will only add ten units to the search," he noted carefully."

"Level One units exist to find needles in haystacks," said the voice confidently. "That has been their task since their inception. With them all placed in mass against a single target, it is hoped that they can get the task done in the time allotted."

The bureaucrat did not really wish to voice the next obvious thought but his superior had not exempted him as of yet for dealing with the hard realities of their task.

"And if the Level One assets don't accomplish the task prior to your time restraint?"

The was another long pause before—

"I just might be forced to entertain the possibility that we activate a Level Zero Operative."

The bureaucrat shuddered at the thought.

* * *

It had not been a good night.

Lady knew without question that pain had been a very big part of her life. Starting with the pain from long, hard training when she was apparently very young—to instances like the memory of the loss of her hand—all the while knowing that there was an entire encyclopedia of unremembered incidences still within her, she had come to know that injury and pain had been very much a major part of who she was.

In this instance, the pain had become one with the insomnia. However, in her condition, she couldn't do the intense midnight workouts (the ones Zoe had caught her at) which exhausted her enough to sleep for at least a couple of hours without the nightmares. That meant that it didn't bode well for the next couple of nights. This in turn caused the mysterious craving to come on even more strongly. The craving when combined with the pain—

At least . . . after some internal experimentation, she found that by working through her 'Center' that she could make the pain retreat to the point where it was 'at the back of her mind'. That allowed her to function despite what her body was telling her—which at the moment seemed to be that she might have a fairly substantial injury to her back/neck from the multiple 'knee drops' which had been performed on her in the bar. It also felt as if something had aggravated that injury. She'd asked a couple of questions and had been told that she and the Captain had done some 'jogging' afterwards—as she couldn't remember she could only assume that they had been getting away from the bar but whatever it was her back/neck had definitely _not_ liked it. Despite that, she had also declined telling the Doctor about her back/neck due to the probability that he couldn't treat her for it. She felt that she was saving the Doctor from any guilt he might develop over not being able to help her. Even so, she had been surprised that the Doctor hadn't realized what was wrong when she had displayed such straight-backed stiffness as she had moved to the exam table.

Lady still didn't have an understanding of just how and why her body 'healed' the way it did. Something told her that it was in fact a combination of several things but nothing had come clearer than—other than the fact that if she was badly injured, Lady 'knew' that she required treatment from very special doctors with very, very special medications. She 'knew' that Simon's treatment of her with 'regular' medicine stood a very real chance of killing her—apparently it almost done so. She also knew that whatever the mechanism within her that healed her the way it did was also the very reason why she could not tolerate regular everyday medicine.

Other than that—she 'knew' that dawn was approaching.

Lady, on the nights when she had been able to sleep, had long ago given up on trying to figure out why or how she always found herself awake just prior to dawn regardless of whatever planet they were on—regardless of whatever time she had actually gone to sleep. At this point she 'knew' that it was one of the things she had always done—but she had to wonder if too much 'habit' was one of the things that might also be not real good for her.

It wasn't as if she had anything to do that morning. Being that the galley was 'down', there was no good reason for her to have to get up to get breakfast other than maybe making a pot of coffee (she still couldn't remember whatever it was that she drank with most of her meals other than it was a hot beverage—but it was most defiantly _not_ coffee). She felt like—all things considered—that between the conditions in the galley and her own injuries—she was certainly justified in taking a morning off—

Other than the fact that she _knew_ that she didn't do things that way—that she had _never_ done things that way.

Lady had come to realize that she was one of those persons who could well be considered a 'prisoner' to her own sense of responsibility. She knew that there had been times in her life where she had carried it to the extreme—part of that transformation she had told Kaylee about. Something else had told her that in recent years she had been able to lighten up—

Which had brought the renewed pain deep down in her very soul—something she now recognized as a sign that _something_ was keeping those memories from coming back to her—

A _something_ she was beginning to believe might just be the equally elusive and unfathomed sadness and guilt that was buried deep down within her.

Lady realized that she was brushing the back of her left hand against her right cheek—and in doing so, she could feel the muscles along her spine from her neck down right at the edge of rebelling after the abuse from the previous evening.

_If nothing else_ she thought to herself _you should get up and work those out—_

_Get up—work out—_

_I wonder—?_

It took more than a moment to get her protesting body to move but—

Lady felt a—grimness come over her as she came down the forward ladder into the Cargo Bay—

Where she saw an equally grim faced River.

The girl was sitting cross-legged on the deck in front of the main gangway, her arms wrapped around herself. Her head was down, eyes focused on the deck in front of her as she slowly rocked back and forth.

Lady allowed her awareness to stretch out—

She could _feel_ the tenseness in the air.

"This won't do," was all she said.

"Teach me!"

Lady's eye narrowed. River's voice was hard and ragged. Her words were not a request, they were a _demand._

"Teach you to do what?" Lady asked.

"To fight!"

"No." Lady's voice was quiet but that single word was backed by steel.

River's head snapped up. "Are you like my brother!" She almost 'spat' that word. "Do you want to wrap me up in cotton—tuck me away in a closet—close the door and turn off the light—"

"You know," the steel was still in Lady's tone, but it was wrapped in a weary reasonableness inside of a container of firm authority, "that your brother is doing what he thinks is best for you."

"All he does," and the heat—and the hurt _flared_ from River, "is pump me full of drugs that cloud my mind, make my brain hurt and keep me from learning what I need. If it wasn't for Kaylee's medicine right now I would be—"

"It is being done to keep _you_ from hurting yourself and others!" The steel in Lady's voice _rang_ like the sound of a sword being drawn from a scabbard.

"I need to grow!" River cried, shooting up like a rocket to her feet, standing with her clenched fists at her side.

"CENTER!" Lady commanded.

It was like a slap in the face to River. The girl stood in wide-eyed disbelief and shock—

She then dropped her head and sought—

After what seemed like an eternity, River took a shuddering breath before raising her head. Her eye's had cleared—although tears lurked in their corners.

"Better," Lady told her simply.

"I want to fight!" River managed although her voice was as close to tears as her eyes.

Lady's eyes narrowed—and River once again found that gaze that seemed to strip her to her very soul without the benefit of being able to read minds.

Finally . . . after what seemed to be several minutes . . . Lady nodded her head toward the open space of the Cargo Bay.

"I will not be joining you—on your own—the Fifth Kata—concentrate on calm, precise movements—concentrate on calm—"

River looked heartbroken, the tears started to run down her cheeks.

"This may be a setback to your wishes little one—but it is not a defeat." The steel in Lady's voice was masked by velvet. "Show your discipline to me by dealing with this. For I am neither saying yes or no to your request. I want time to think and consider all the aspects involved."

A little bit of hope came to River's eyes. She took another shuddering breath. "Then—then you will let me—?"

"I will consider," and River could see the promise in both Lady's eyes and mind . . . allowing the girl to also see—

_She really is trying to consider what is truly best for me_ River realized from what she could read in Lady's mind—that unto itself bringing a calm to the girls 'self' For in the past weeks she had come to trust Lady no less than she did her brother—without the sometimes patronizing tone/mood/feeling/thoughts that her brother couldn't help but feel from his frustration, anxiety and sense of inadequacy over his ability to help her or his inability to truly understand all of her problems.

River took another deep breath—this one she managed without the shuddering—

Before she moved to the center of the Cargo Bay to assume the starting position for the Fifth Kata.

As she suddenly realized just how eager she was to show Lady just how disciplined she could be.

And if Lady didn't agree—River already knew what she intended to do.

River was going to learn how to fight.


	20. Readjustment

Chapter Twenty – Readjustment

* * *

Late in the afternoon, Mal, Zoe and Jayne were walking rapidly through Belgium's compound headed for the front gate. A call from that gate indicated that their consumables had arrived but apparently they had showed up with a problem attached.

The three of them were moving at what could conservatively be called a brisk walk . . . which more than accented the fact that their movements were hobbled and wooden. Jayne was favoring his wounded side, Mal's shoulders and stance were hunched, Zoe's back was very straight against the stiffness/pain that had settled into it. But whatever their bodies were feeling, none of that showed in the grim look on their battered faces. Despite the fact that they were within someone else's domain, they were all wearing their weapons. Which meant—

"Hey! What do you guys think you're doin?"

The three of them stopped, turning to look at Belgium, who had suddenly appeared from what looked to be some kind of work shack. He was in a belligerent stance with his hands on his hips; an accusing glare could be felt from his eyes despite the ever present dark glasses.

Mal, his bad eye almost closed, glanced in surprise in the direction of the gate then back at the big man. "Whatareyou—" he started.

"What do you mean 'what am I doing'," Belgium almost roared this as he suddenly started to stalk toward them with a most dangerous intent. "This is my place after all and you're suppose to know the rules and the rules 'bout' guns on my property—"

Zoe placed herself in front of her Captain, holding one hand up to try and calm the approaching thunderstorm. "We got a call from your gate that there was a problem. They told us that you were gone, had left the property."

That stopped the big man just feet from them. He looked at Zoe for a long moment as if considering—

"I _know_ you wouldn't lie to me," Belgium growled at her. "But whether or not my not bein around is involved, the rule 'bout' guns still stand. You can carry your holstered weapons in bags between your ship and the front gate—they're not to be worn on my property!"

Mal was trying very hard—considering the circumstances—to control his temper. Even so, his voice was _very_ tight when he said, "accordin to _your_ gate, _you're_ not supposed to be here and a group of Scrappers are holdin our consumables hostage." Mal allowed his eyes to flash. "If that be's the case, I intend to get them to agree to release our stuff—one way or another."

That brought a—look to Belgium's face despite the sun glasses. After a moment, he looked down at his belt as he pulled his Comm unit off of it. He glared at it as he tried to push its activation buttons. He then glanced at the three _Serenity_ crew—

"I put a new battery in this thing this morning—now it's dead. I don't want to make any claims—but this is the first time it's ever done that—and my gate knows to call me for somethin like this before callin the Captain of a ship—and they _know_ that I didn't leave the property!"

Mal waited for a moment before he threw a hand in the direction of Belgium's gate. "Well—?"

Belgium then stalked by them, not giving any of them so much as a look as he did so. What he did do was growl to them out of the side of his mouth, "as long as you're on my property, those guns of your's stay in their holsters unless somebody out there points a loaded one of their own in your direction. Walk off my property if you want to do anything else."

"Fair enough," was Mal's equally growled responded.

* * *

Kaylee came into the Dining Area, grimacing as the workers, who were on multiple ladders clustered around the entire rear part of the room, did something they shouldn't causing a 'glitch' which in turn caused a shower of sparks to rain down on the Engineer, down onto her shoulders and into her hair while the workers curses did a similar assault on her ears.

The Engineer skittered around to get away from the sparks, brushing frantically at her hair—if she herself did something like that, she took it like an Engineer—but if someone else did it to her—

She backed warily away across the Dining Area almost to the galley before she started to turn back around toward the hatch to the forward passageway. She stopped for a moment as she saw—

There was a single ladder toward the front of the Dining Area; a greasy faced youth whom she had seen with the initial work crew was just pulling his head/shoulders out of the opening the workers had made in the Dining Area's overhead. She frowned for a moment. When she had done Mal's requested system check, that section of work had checked clear. A moment later she gave herself a mental shrug. Maybe they had been short of cable ties or something and the worker was just doing the clean-up work. With that, she walked around into the galley to get the bottle of water she had originally come in for.

Which meant that she wasn't looking toward the greasy face kid when he noticed her presence in the room. Fortunately for him, Kaylee's back was to him so she missed the shock on his face—

* * *

Fortunately for everyone else, the Town Marshall had apparently heard-in-advance about the potential of a problem at Belgium's front gate. He proved this by showing up with several of his deputies even before Belgium or the group from _Serenity_ arrived to confront the _very_ large group of Scrappers that were gathered around the supply wagon. The Marshall was a _big_ man with a calm, decisive demeanor and according to words aside from Belgium into Zoe's ears; he had no love for Scrappers.

Which was well demonstrated.

"I'm arresting them," the Scrapper Leader yelled, "with our Clan Laws!"

"You ain't doin any such thing," was the Marshall's quiet admonition.

"Then we'll take them—" was as far as the Leader managed before the Marshall turned, slugging the Leader in the gut, bending him double as the Deputies weapons came to their shoulders, providing back up for their bosses move lest any of the other Scrappers have any wrong ideas.

The Marshalls action (along with the group of shotgun muzzles) kind of took the air out of the Scrappers sails. However, the teamster who was delivering _Serenity's_ supplies refused to enter Belgium's property for fear of later Scrapper reprisal. Mal used his Comm to call Wash, telling the Pilot to bring the Mule and trailer to the gate.

Once the Pilot arrived, the four of them started to transfer the load of consumables under the watchful eye of the Marshall while the Scrappers (including the recovering but livid Leader) watched from across the plaza. Belgium went into his gatehouse to try and figure out what had gone wrong with his people and communications.

When they were finished, Wash hopped back onto the mule while Mal, making sure that Zoe and Jayne were ready, gestured a wave of thanks towards the Marshall—

—who held up a hand to keep them from leaving before he started to slowly saunter over.

Mal and Zoe exchanged worried looks before Mal turned back to the Marshall, giving the big man (at least a couple of inches taller than Jayne) what he hoped was a disarming smile. "Mighty obliged for the help Marshall."

The Marshall nodded even as he said, "and I'd be mighty obliged if'n you and yours stay within Belgium's walls for your stay here—as well as in the future if'n you ever haveta come back. Scrapper's an their Clan's have mighty long memories."

Mal took in the frank look in the Marshall's eyes and after a moment nodded.

A moment later, just a ghost of a smile touched the Marshall's lips before he said, "'spose should thank you as well. We've suspected things at that bar fer a good bit. Seem's that when that assistant manager was left in charge—things happened. Couldn't prove anything tho, interior video always came up with nothin on it—probably wiped and looped—which didn't happen this time thanks to you and your bunch 'cause the assistant manager was on his way to the hospital."

At that point, the Marshall gave all of the _Serenity_ crew a very hard look. "It's clear from that video that youall did what you needed to do—but a word—four of them; two of them Scrappers and the assistant manager and one of his helpers are in the hospital—and two of them probably won't make it out."

That caused the four _Serenity_ members' to exchange looks.

The Marshall looked at Jayne, "While you were in that dog pile next to the pool table, you grabbed onea the Scrappers and rammed him inta the side of the table—he's gonna loose an eye. But 'cause he's a Scrapper the docs ain't gonna try to save the eye or purdy him back up from havin his nose smashed flat."

Jayne was giving the Marshall a hard, unforgiving look. "He got what he deserved," he said defiantly.

The Marshall nodded. "Didn't say he didn't." He then looked to Wash and Zoe, the First Mate standing very close to the Pilot who was astride the mule. "You two together?" was all he asked.

They both nodded.

The Marshall nodded at Wash. "The one chokin her—the one you kicked in the side of the head—he's probably not gonna make it—had an old injury—skull caved in once already—fragments from that old wound were drivin inside—swellin in the brain—lotta blood. Cause he's a citizen, they're tryin to save him but it don't look good."

Wash looked to his wife—shocked to his very core— only to have his wife put her fingertips on his mouth before he could say anything—allowing her eyes to convey to him that as far as she was concerned, he was blameless.

Jayne gave Wash a surprised look as he hadn't been aware that they Pilot had fought so hard and hadn't held back. Even if the Pilot couldn't see him at the moment, the Merc gave the Pilot a grudging nod of respect.

Mal hadn't taken his eyes off of the Marshall—who now looked directly back at _Serenity's_ Captain.

"You got a tall, long-haired lady in your crew?"

Mal nodded, his face expressionless. "My cook." He intentionally said 'my' in such a way as to convey to the Marshall that the 'tall long-haired lady' _was_ a member of his crew and therefore under _his_ care and responsibility.

"She's quite a fighter," the Marshall went on. "Managed to put two in Intensive Care. Ought'a thank her fer takin out the assistant manager so's the video couldn't be doctored. But her kick busted his face all up, screwed up his one eye as well as his jaw and sinuses in a real nasty way. As a citizen they'll fix him up and make him purdy again—but it's gonna cost him big time and he's gonna have ta find work elsewhere."

But then the Marshall took a deep breath before, "now I understand that she got busted up and couldn't use one of her arms. But the last guy—after she took him down, usin some pretty fancy moves I have to admit, she clearly reached out and made like his head was a melon that needed to be broke open against the floor." The Marshall shook his head. "He's still alive but the docs don't know for how long." The look on his face conveyed the feeling that the Scrappers demise was imminent if not already a fact. The Marshall then shrugged. "Because he's a Scrapper, 'cause there's Scrappers involved and 'cause the bars duty staff were doin somethin they shouldn't be, there won't be no coroner's inquest. But she was goin out on a mighty slim tree limb there—"

He gave Mal a very 'substantial' look. "I won't ask how she got so strong—looked like she was pickin up a doll by its head when she did it. I can only assume it was all cause of adrenaline along with bein . . . little bit outta it from her injuries . . . however . . . you might wanna have a talk to her 'bout exercisin a little restraint."

Mal held the Marshall's gaze for a moment before nodding with a, "I'll do that."

The Marshall nodded back. "See that you do." With that, after tipping his hat to Zoe, the Marshall strode away, his deputies falling in behind him.

Mal watched him go for a moment before growling, "let's get back to the boat."

Wash started up the mule, his wife hitching herself up on the side as he drove off into Belgium's compound. Mal and Jayne followed on foot, only to stop as Belgium came out of the gatehouse.

"Something's not right," he growled. "Someone put a note in the shack that I was gone during a certain time period. I _never_ use notes and they know that—or they're suppose to." He glanced angrily back at the shack. "I just fired that guy—they're supposed to know that I do everything face-to-face verbally. I don't know what's going on but I intend to find out." He looked back to Mal, "I don't know if this has anything to do with you—you aren't my only problem right now—but be aware."

Mal nodded. He knew Belgium's reputation and he knew that whatever was going on, someone was going to have some grief in the end.

* * *

Simon walked off the ramp into the comparative darkness of Belgium's compound. He looked about him trying to look . . . casual and unconcerned. . . .

Simon was tired and frustrated. He'd decided that day to give up on the new meds for his sister as he wasn't getting the reaction that he thought he should out of it. What was more frustrating was that as far as any cooperation coming out of his sister, River had gone back somewhat to the way she had been when he had first tried to start to treat her all those long months ago, moody and argumentative about her meds. He intended to drop back, rethink it, double check via what sources he could safely access as far as what he thought the meds should do then—

But right now—he felt that he needed a break. And—

Book, who had returned earlier in the evening had said that Kaylee had 'gone outside to get some air'.

Trying very hard to look 'nonchalant', Simon stuck his hands in his pants pockets while whistling a tune (poorly) even as he just kinda strolled around the flank of _Serenity_, around the large bulk of one of the VTOL engines which was lowered down in its 'grounded' position—which also blocked his view—

The 'whistle' petered out as a pair of figures came into view.

It was Kaylee who was talking to a figure huddled on what appeared to be an overturned bucket.

Simon hesitated—startled—wondering if he should put things into reverse but curious at the same time about who it could be that Kaylee was talking too—

At that moment, the 'huddled' figure sat all the way up allowing Simon to realize that it was Wash . . . and that the Pilot was motioning him to come over.

Simon hesitated another moment, wondering if somehow his original motivation to try and spend some time with Kaylee would be all too clear to the Pilot and Engineer but—

He tried to 'amble' over to the pair, all the while suspecting that he was probably failing miserably in the execution.

"Come join our mutual miserable menagerie," Wash's said in greeting as Simon got close enough to hear.

"Oh?" Simon wondered, his interest piqued despite himself. "And just what are we all being miserable about?"

"The fact that we're sheep among wolves," Kaylee told him. She was standing with her arms crossed in front of her, her face tired and serious. But there was also a tone in her voice welcoming him to the conversation. Simon fixed on that tone even as he tried to puzzle out the meaning of her words.

Simon wasn't puzzled for long for Kaylee turned back to Wash, carrying their prior conversation with the Pilot forward in a way that allowed Simon to both understand what they were talking about as well as bringing him into it.

"Simon here is another example," Kaylee said. "I mean, to use the Captain's phrase, he 'took up arms' when we went into Niska's hole." In the dark, it looked like Kaylee was giving Simon an approving look when she said, "he even charged into the station with the Shepherd when we thought that it was you guys callin for help."

"You 'took up arms' as well," Wash told her.

"And chickened out when it got right down to it," Kaylee said in a quiet voice.

Simon felt Kaylee's embarrassment and unhappiness like a blow to his stomach, causing him to try to rise to her defense by saying, "but Kaylee, you're . . . just too nice to have to want to shoot someone."

He heard Kaylee snort at that statement. "That's just what we're talkin 'bout," she told him. "Wash and me (she made a gesture towards the Pilot) and now you—we're not fighters—or at least you two aren't 'cept at need." Her head dropped a little. "I'm not one at all—even when all of you guys need me to be."

"The sheep among wolves," Simon said softly, now understanding what the conversation was about.

"You shouldn't be," was what Wash said in reply to Kaylee's statement. "Some people just aren't meant to be fighters Kaylee—cause being a fighter means being a killer when it comes right down to it." The Pilot glanced up at Simon. "The Doc and me, you're right, we're not fighters except at need. But even then, the idea of killing someone—" with those last words, Wash's voice trailed off.

"You didn't do it on purpose," Kaylee told Wash in a soft voice.

"And just how is kicking someone in the side of their head just as _hard_ as you could not be 'on purpose?" Anger tinged Wash's voice.

Simon now completely understood. And after a moment's thought, he told the Pilot, "you didn't kill him Wash—you stopped the threat."

That had both Wash and Kaylee looking at him.

Simon sighed before he said, "back when I was a simple Trauma/ER doctor, back when I was a good producing citizen working for the betterment of humanity, every day I saw a cross section of society either coming in on a stretcher or standing around in the hospital waiting room. But outside of my nurses and staff, the ones that I actually dealt directly with most of the time were the Fire/Resctechs and the Police."

He shook his head. "The Fire/Rescue Technicians were consummate professionals of which I have nothing bad to say other that I would never want to do certain parts of their job." Simon then shrugged. "The Police on the other hand—maybe I was—prejudiced by some of my experiences when I was in college—but on reflection I also came to some conclusions."

He looked at both the Pilot and the Engineer. "Neither of you grew up in The Core. So I don't know what things where like on your birth planets. But by-and-large, the majority of the Police I dealt with starting in college and carried through into my work were 'power-mad, egotistical, conservative extremists with delusions of their own importance and overinflated concepts of their place in the social hierarchy known as 'The Food Chain'."

Simon then grinned, not caring if either of his listeners could see it in the dark. "However, it was only after I started on my quest to find out about and then rescue my sister from her Academy, that I realized that _every_ official or person in authority, regardless of what kind of position of authority you're talking about at the moment is a 'power-mad, egotistical, conservative extremist with delusions of their own importance and overinflated concepts of their place in the social hierarchy known as 'The Food Chain'". A snort added emphasis to his grin when he then added, " . . . including most definitely Trauma/ER doctors in the form of yours truly. In fact I came to realize when things didn't necessarily go my way that I just might be the worst of the bunch."

He heard both Wash and Kaylee half-humorously snort/giggle at this statement. He gave them a moment to recover before he went on.

"Be that as it may, as I got further and further into this whole sordid process, I came to realize something. While yes, as a whole, the 'cops' that I dealt with were in my mind, a prime example of the Alliance and its ego, its control and its suppression of what is so widely called 'personal rights', I found that most of who I was dealing with was the young—'kill 'em all and let the coroner sort 'em out' rookies or the 'young bucks', the ones with less than a decade or so on the job." He held up a hand to emphasize his next point. "However—I also had the opportunity to occasionally encounter and talk to what can only be called one of those, 'old grizzled veterans'—and from them I got some very interesting insights."

He had Kaylee and Wash's full attention as he took a moment to marshal his thoughts so they could understand.

"You are using the analogy of 'wolves' against 'sheep'. Throw that away because it distorts the reality."

"And what is the reality?" Wash asked, sounding skeptical.

"Think about who it is that we're talking about when it comes to those we intimately know," Simon told them. "What is the most basic and fundamental link between the Captain, your wife Zoe, Jayne . . . possibly Shepherd Book and now Lady?"

Silence stretched out. Finally both Wash and Kaylee had to shake their heads.

"In the most simplest of terms," Simon told them, "even when we consider everything we _don't_ know about the Shepherd and Lady—is that _I_ believe that at one point in their lives they all were soldiers—and soldiers, regardless of their branch or secondary 'vocation' within their command hierarchy, are first and foremost trained to kill."

"Not the Shepherd," Kaylee breathed.

"No," Wash said sounding thoughtful, "think about it Kaylee, think about how he was when you guys were setting up for the assault on Niska's Skyplex. Think about competent he was in getting those weapons out, checking them as if he knew exactly how to do so. Think how calm and cool he was when Zoe ask him about what the Bible said about killing where his reply was something to the effect of about how it was '_somewhat fuzzier on kneecaps'__."_

_ "__And you saw," Simon added, "just how efficient he was on some of those kneecaps." A self-depreciating smile came to his face. "The Shepherd was precise, efficient, and dead on in handling that gun. Me? I was just lucky to be able to shoot in the bad guys 'general direction'. The Shepherd even told me when it was all over that he was fairly certain that I hadn't actually 'shot someone'. I'm probably lucky that I didn't shoot one of you or even myself."_

_ "__So just what are you saying?" Wash asked Simon, getting back to the point._

_ "__Those 'old grizzled veteran cops' that I was telling you about answered some of my questions about just exactly what it was that they encountered out on the streets. And there lies the difference. Cops—and by the legal code when its applied to citizens like you and me in regards to self defense against being attacked, the level of legal review applied to a deadly force situation is decided strictly on the level of force used to end the threat__ to the officer or the citizen. It's called whatever is 'reasonable and necessary' considering the time, place and circumstances at the exact time the 'incident' (air quotes) occurs. If a madman is attacking you with a piece of rebar from a construction zone and all you've got is another piece of rebar and you bash in his head before he bashes in yours, as long as you only bash him __once__ or __whatever is necessary to stop the threat to your person__, it's considered reasonable. If you have to hit him three times to stop the threat—so be it—as long as you __stop__ doing what you're doing the moment the threat is ended."_

_Wash thought a moment before, "and this compares to Mal, Jayne, maybe Book, maybe Lady and my wife—how?"_

_ "__They're Soldiers," was Simon's reply. "They're trained to 'kill' . . . not to 'stop' . . . although that doesn't necessarily means that they have to kill in a specific circumstance—but their more than ready and capable of doing it if its required." Another grim smile. "We've all certainly seen more than once instance where the Captain 'killed' when there might have been other alternatives available."_

_Wash just sat on the bucket, arms on his knees, looking up at Simon. He didn't say anything._

_Simon did._

_ "__That . . . donnybrook in the bar was more than out of control. That man was on top of your wife was choking her. There is no way to know—considering the intensity of the battle—and that's what it was, a battle—just what his intent was—whither he just intended to choke her into unconsciousness or to her death. There was neither the time nor any tools near at hand for you to end that __threat to your wife's life__. So you had to take immediate and direct action to __end the threat__ by the most immediate and direct method available to you using what tools you did have at hand . . . which in this case was the foot attached to the end of your leg."_

_Wash looked at the Doctor for a very long moment before, "that all being said—it really doesn't make me feel any better about it."_

_Simon shook his head. "It's not meant too. It's meant for you to accept it in order for you to move on past it."_

_Wash considered this a moment before, "you sound awful certain about that."_

_Now Simon nodded before saying, "how do you think I deal with all the guilt __I__ have over my sister, what has happened to our lives and the reality of our being on this ship (he waved toward __Serenity__) on the run from everything we once knew."_

_ "__You did what you had to with the tools you had to end the threat to your sister," Kaylee said with what sounded like awe in her voice._

_Simon just kind of nodded an acknowledgement—though he was a little disappointed that Kaylee hadn't realized such a condition existed for him after all their time/conversations before. But he didn't say anything, just continued to watch Wash as the Pilot thought through what had been said._

_The Pilot finally nodded. "I guess I can see what you're getting at." He thought for another moment before he told the Doctor, "thanks."_

_Simon nodded._

* * *

Several days later, Lady finished 'puttering' around the Dining Area. True to Mal's original word, the maintenance crew had eventually finished their work and in doing so they had cleaned up the majority of the damage they had done inside of the ship including getting the table and chairs mostly back the way they had been. She had to wonder if the reason why they had taken such pains to get it right was due to guilt on their parts when they came to realize that Lady had been singlehandedly clearing all of the refuse and mess every evening during the period the work had been going on despite her Captain's admonitions to let it be. Knowing that the work crew had noticed the very obvious difference between the condition of the space when they left the night before against the condition when they walked back in the next morning—

Lady 'knew' from impressions and feelings from her past that outside work crews really didn't 'give a rat's ass' (she was _not_ going to attempt to translate that into Chinese—for she was still almost completely unable to put more than two or three words 'together-in-a-sentence' without it being some kind of rote phrase) about someone cleaning up around them, but as she hoped, at least the crew supervisor would notice, making sure that the final cleanup was as complete as possible. Which suited Lady fine for apparently it had.

During the days the galley had been down, being that they were now restricted to Belgium's compound, Lady with help from Zoe, a healing Wash, Kaylee and Inara once the Companion returned from her appointments, did simple sandwich, snack and picnic type meals down in the Lounge. Lady proclaimed forcibly that meals in the Dining Area would not resume until she had had the opportunity to get that Dining Area cleaned back to her specification. She was just now finishing that thorough cleaning sometime after the normal dinner hour while she pondered what she would make for breakfast the next morning to celebrate the galley's reopening—other than Wash's long-delayed tarts.

She was also glad that she was done for another reason. She had felt more than a little restricted with her one arm in a sling but she had dealt with it. During that same period of time, the pain/stiffness in her back/neck/spine had slowly faded. Both of those 'circumstances' had caused the same old thoughts about her spending a considerable amount of time in her life with various limbs immobilized or parts of her body out of action had come often to her. Those thoughts had been added to and validated by new emerging 'memories'. One of them was an instance of some kind of explosion which had broken her forearm, two ribs and punctured an eardrum. The other was a deep burn to her chest when some kind of powerful beam weapon had hit her dead center only to be barely stopped by some kind of protective armor or vest. There were other still vague impressions beyond that, some of them going . . . really far back . . . with her being a little girl. She must have been what they called a tomboy or something. She must have learned to deal with pain at a young age.

Which was fine for the pain in her shoulder was at the moment no more than a dull throb if she worked the shoulder more than it liked. The pain in her back/neck/spine had faded to nothing more than a constant dull ache making her believe that process of healing was nearly complete. She certainly hoped so because at times, the pain had been very wearing.

Lady understood the Doctors reasoning about not giving her any pain medication considering what had returned to her about the medial/healing aspects of her body . . . but that certainly didn't mean that she had enjoyed the pain. Indeed, there had been times when she had wished for whatever it was that she craved in the evenings and a blacked-out room to crawl into—

That craving, she clearly was trying to _not_ remember it. It was so confusing.

That part bothered her more than she cared to admit. Something within her had told her that throughout her life, she had taken pride in her ability to 'know herself'. But something else had told her that at some point in her life, she had lost that pride, falling into darkness only to struggle back up into the light. She knew that within her was a deep seated fear that she would one day fall back into that darkness.

Even so, she had renewed her efforts to try and find her 'self'. Currently she had taken time in the evenings to try and . . . meditate or at least make the attempt as well as her imperfect sense of whatever training she had had would allow.

There was one thing that she had managed to do. After much effort, she found that with great concentration, she had managed to pierce the darkness surrounding one of her 'blank' periods by bringing up a very vague idea of what she had done with the three boarders, the ruffians, the 'Independents' who had forced Kaylee aboard. She had managed to at least recover enough of an impression that it was like she had been outside of her body looking at the action when they had made their move on her . . . but anything more than that was . . . hazy.

She felt that she should probably talk to Simon about it all but Lady felt that she had baffled the poor Doctor enough with all her conditions which even to herself would seem bizarre when contained inside of one person—

"Ya, know, those stupid Scrappers weren't wrong 'bout everything—"

Lady felt herself stiffen but only for a moment. Like it had always happened before, something akin to a deep discipline that enforced calm and patience enveloped her at the sound of Jayne's biting sarcastic tones.  
"Sidering that you were 'bout as useful in that fight as a housewife with a fryin pan, I guess your place should be in the kitchen."

The Merc finished coming in through the hatch to the forward passageway. He made his way over to the pantry which he started to rummage through as he went on.

"Yeah, considerin that I took out a whole passel of those yahoos even though a couple of them managed to stick me and another did clang my clock for a bit—"

He grabbed something, tearing it open and stuffing the contents into his mouth shut him up for the moment. Even with the distance between them, Lady could smell the booze on him. She moved to the opposite side of the Dining Area to maintain as much space between the two of them as she could where she continued to clean and organize, the calmness allowing her to pointedly ignore him—

Even as some sense deep within her watched him like a hawk, making her aware of his every motion, every move even if the information came simply through her very sharp hearing.

"I dunno . . . maybe it's your size," Jayne continued in what he probably thought was a 'thoughtful' tone, "I mean, you an Zoe are about the same size rather than regular womenfolk like Kaylee or the Companion. I'm thinkin that maybe big women think they can fight jus cause their big." He snorted then added, "you'll be wrong there thinkin that your size can help you fight. Everyone knows the truth. Men are better fighters anyway and big men like Mal and me, you saw plainly how real men like us can fight."

It sounded as if he snorted and . . . spit on her clean deck. Lady felt a deep spark of irritation which she kept firmly under control.

"Don't get me wrong thou," Jayne continued as he started to make his way back toward the front hatch. "Zoe's got all that soldier experience sois she can at least handle most of what she comes across. You on the other hand—"

Lady could 'feel' Jayne's nasty smile looking at her as he said, "just what did you do with those idiots that tired to shanghai Kaylee? You must of snuck up behind them after our little mechanic fainted or sumpthin and took those _jue dou's_ with a pipe or sumpthin. And those _fei fei's_ in the bar . . . by the sounds of it, you got the drop on 'em in some way—probably when they were lookin at me or Mal and took 'em out before they knew it—and like a girl, you hit 'em so hard—what'd you use, one of Mal's beer bottles rather than your fists?"

He snorted and shook his head saying, "that's the way women fight."

He stepped back through the hatch with a wave over his shoulder, "keep to your kitchen 'Lady', cause that's where you belong."

Lady didn't even turn her head or do anything else to acknowledge that a noisy fly had just left the room.

* * *

"What should I do?"

Inara's nostrils 'flared' at Kaylee's question. She certainly understood the young Engineer's concerns and like anyone trained in natural healing and the ways of knowing and understanding the rhythms and flow of life through the human body, she was acutely aware of the pitfalls and abuses of the medical world—

The overmedication of patients was a well established fact. Especially someone like Simon who was clearly 'desperate' that his sister become 'normal'. He was allowing his love for his sister, his guilt for allowing her to become the way she was (as if he had any real control over it) and his 'need' to 'return everything to what it was before' enough to blind him to what he was actually doing to River.

It might be the best of intentions—but that didn't mean that it couldn't have the worst of results. Inara had seen River during the week before their arrival at Beylix, she had been neither impressed with any 'change' in her from the new medication nor had she been happy with the girls new lethargy.

Kaylee looked at the Companion with pleading in her eyes.

"Don't say anything," Inara commanded having made her decision.

Fright came into Kaylee's face—

Inara held up a calming hand. "If Simon ever finds out, you are to tell him that it was done at _my_ direction. I will take full responsibility. I will say that I _told_ you to allow River to come into contact with this natural way of healing."

"But," Kaylee said hesitantly, "he'll probably still get mad at me."

After a moment Inara nodded. "He most certainly will. Professionals like Doctors are that way and that will never change. However," she gave Kaylee a look almost as piercing as the ones Lady could manage, "if he is incapable of forgiving you, is it not best that you know that now—rather than later when your relationship has moved to another level?"

Kaylee refrained from saying _as if that's ever gonna happen_

* * *

"Well, Reynolds, this is a novel experience," Belgium sighed with satisfaction as he counted out the currency that Mal had just handed him. "Keep this kind of thing up and you just might escape your reputation as a tightwad."

"I prefer to think of myself as thrifty," Mal managed with a straight face.

"Yeah," Belgium snorted giving Zoe an almost amused look. "Well, I guess what you mean by thrifty is somethin that ain't in the dictionary. I mean, you cause a big ruckus on your first night here that causes you to have to keep you and your crew on board for the rest of your spell here cause every Scrapper within this hemisphere is waitin outside the gates just pantin for you to stick your nose out. You do that on purpose so's your crew can't go anywhere to spend that pitiful amount you pay them?"

"Public Relations are always a good thing don't you think?" Mal told Belgium with an admirably straight face. "Almost as good as Personnel Management—which I do excel in if I do say so myself."

The big black man snorted as one of his workers walked up with something for him to sign. As Belgium perused the document, Mal said, "well, we'll be makin tracks outta here. Thanks again for the work."

Belgium looked up and gave both Mal and Zoe a nod. "Sorta a pleasure as always. And be sure to tell that cook of yours that those had to be some of the best tarts I've ever had . . . and my mamma wasn't a slouch in the kitchen."

Belgium signed the document, handing it back to the worker. He then held out a hand for _Serenity's_ Captain and First Mate to shake. As they did so, Belgium told them, "still haven't figured out what happened that day—but I'm still workin on it. I'll let you know ifin it's somethin you need to know."

Mal nodded to the big man with a "much obliged" right before he and Zoe headed up the ramp, Mal hitting the controls to button up before slapping the intercom, "all aboard Wash. Let's get flyin."

Belgium and his worker moved to step away as _Serenity's_ engines started to wind up. Belgium finally grunted and turned to walk away, pointing to the document he just signed, telling the worker who carried it, "sorry to see you go Dublin. You've been a good worker. This job with Amalgamated came up sortta fast."

The greasy face youth could only shrug with a lopsided grin. "Cousin jumped in for me."

The roar of _Serenity's_ engines now made conversation impossible as dust and small debris blew past the two men. Belgium waved at his now former worker, gave the rising Firefly a last glance before turning and heading off toward the next job.

Dublin watched him go for a moment, then his eyes swung toward the spaceship now climbing away as the roar abated. The lopsided grin had become a fearsome snarl deforming the barely there fuzzy goatee on his chin as those eyes watched the _Firefly_ shrink into the distance.

* * *

Mal came into the forward passageway just as Lady finished climbing up out of her cabin. Mal raised one eyebrow as he watched her and asked as he came up, "did the Doc clear you on that arm?"

For the sling was gone and Lady had used two hands to make the climb. Mal had silently sympathized with her awkward, jerking one-handed climbing having been in those same shoes several times himself. And even though he felt that he understood just a little of her at this point and thought that she would not flagrantly abuse her body in healing (whatever she might do to it in a fight), he still had to act the Captain and challenge her on it.

She flashed him a slight smile replying as she stood up before him, "the Doctor told me earlier today to use my own discretion since he couldn't do much with it anyway. As it is," she looked at the shoulder in question as she moved the arm around in its full range of motion, "nothing feels bad and all the twinges have gone away." She saw the expression on Mal's face and flashed him what he was personally calling her 'commanders look' as she added, "I'm not going to push things sir. From what the Doctor has told me I am very much a medical mystery to your Verse as well as all the other mysteries that enfold me. I can't very well work at solving any of those mysteries if I inhibit myself in any way."  
Mal just shook his head. "Where did you learn to talk like that? Enfold? Inhibit? You got a dictionary stuffed inside you with all that other . . . stuff?"

Lady gave him another half second glance before a phony grin covered her face as she said in a _very_ sweet tone, "if I could answer that _sir_ we would have one less mystery around to properly mesmerize those uncouth enough not to be proper aficionados of the genre or would that be an unrealistic assumption of the cerebral characteristics of some but not all of my fellow crewmates?"

"Say what?" Mal snorted. She gave him small smile with a respectful nod and slipped past him headed for the Dining Area. Mal then headed up toward the ladder to the Bridge. As he came onto it, he noted that Zoe was standing next to her husband. She looked back over her shoulder as the Captain entered.

"We've broken orbit sir and we are on our way to New Melbourne in the _Zhu Que_ system. Say goodbye to lovely Kalidasa. ETA is approximately two hundred hours."

Mal nodded as he looked toward the control panel before Wash. "How's she handlin Wash?"

"The new software," the Pilot stated in an easy tone, "is still settling in but there's a definite improvement. I think it's gonna be a winner."

Mal looked at the course that Wash had set in. "How close do you intendin to come to Pengali?"

"I know what you're thinking," the Pilot replied sounding a bit defensive, "and no I'm not going to try and push new software too hard. But considering where all of Pengali's other planets and moons are right now, if we're going to cut inside their orbits like we normally would do we're going to have to shave a little close to the gas giant itself. The other option is around the backside of the giant and that will 'gravity well' some time onto our eta. So I opted to go over the top—"

"Which puts us through the main radiation belt for Pengali. Are we in a rush?" Mal asked sounding 'surprised'.

Wash didn't reply right away. Instead he just sat there with tightly pursed lips for a moment before taking a long slow breath, asking _very_ politely, "I take it sir that you would like—"

"You certainly may take it any way you like," Mal broke in smoothly, "but as long as you take my ship with you on a little bit less-demanding-on-still-configuring-software course that's not going to put any unnecessary clock time on our anti-radiation shields you'll know I'll be a much happier man."

Wash managed not to sigh but started to punch alterations into the console.

Zoe tried not to smile at her husband's reaction to Mal acting like a Captain. It lasted only a moment however before she fixed Mal with her gaze and asked, "are you worried about the rumors that Belgium heard, that the BI actually looking for a _Firefly_, meaning us? Do you think that the Alliance would really go that far?"

Mal could only shrug. "We've talked ourselves blue about what we thought Lady might be. Turns out that she might be somethin even more important than that."

"Or something more dangerous to the Alliance," Wash put in, his poor mood forgotten in the conversation.

"One can always hope for that," Mal said with feeling.

"But what?" Zoe asked the world at large. "I mean we thought that Simon and River were important but they never caused this kind of response."

"Maybe," Wash said in a tone that it made it sound as if he was voicing something he expected to be laughed off. "What if Lady is what she keeps saying she is. What if she is from . . . someplace outside."

Zoe . . . looked uncomfortable at such a thought. Mal was more than uncomfortable but—

"Such a thing would certainly explain why the Alliance is after her so bad," he mused out loud. "Don't know how it could be thou. The history of Earth-that-Was is pretty convincing."

"And well documented," Wash agreed (he had not told anyone of all the interesting conversations he had had with Lady regarding what she could remember of her 'galaxy').

"Still," Zoe put out, "you have to wonder about Lady. Everything about her _screams_ 'different'." Her eyes narrowed a moment, "Maybe she's . . . I don't know. Call it totally constructed. An artificial person, created by someone."

Mal looked at her. "Why would someone do that?"

Wash shrugged for his wife. "Why do some scientists do whatever they do? Might be why her memories are so screwed up though, she was never really 'fully programmed'.

Mal thought it over for a moment. Cloning was strictly controlled by the Alliance, one of the few things he would grant as being right and proper of the rules imposed by the Feds. To carry that farther, someone actually created from scratch? To recall what Wash had said about River being a 'reader' as 'something out of science fiction'—

But then . . . they did live on a space ship.

"Well, add it to the list of maybes," was what he said. He looked back down to Wash. "How does that course change affect our ETA?"

"Adds twelve hours to it."

Mal nodded. "We ain't in any hurry."


	21. Tumbled

Chapter Twenty One –Tumbled

* * *

Mal came awake. The nausea hit him hard. Lying in his bunk, hands scrambling to grasp the frame as things started to go wild, he could feel the vertigo ripping though his inner ears. _We've lost control of the internal gravity_ was his first thought. His eyes came open. The dim lighting in his dark cabin was dancing around with the flux of gravity. Maybe the ship was rolling as well—

_The new software_ was all he had time to think about before things lurched even harder. Before he could have another thought, he was heaved out of his bunk; he was flying and he knew it but with the shifting gravity and the side effects of it distorting his senses he didn't have the time or the visual references to orient himself before he came into contact with some other part of his cabin. So when he smashed the top of his head (right on top of the barely healed welt from that glorious head butt) into the deck of his cabin things almost went very black. He was able to heave himself over and get himself spread eagled on the floor as things swirled around him. The combination of the blow to his head and the vertigo caused by the runaway gravity messed up his inner ears and stomach. He fought to kept things down, fought to orient himself within his own cabin, fought to search for his target within the strange surreal world the fluctuating gravity and strobeing emergency lights. As he did so he was working to struggle out of the remainder of his blankets, the movement of his body through the rippled waves of gravity causing his nausea to come even harder.

Mal got himself free, managed to come around. Everything was spinning so bad! Where was he? What direction was he facing? The lights—

He almost leapt off of the deck, hoping that he eyes had seen what he sought rather than him jumping off into his worktable or the corner were the head was.

Mal slammed face first into the bulkhead beyond the foot of his bunk next to the alcove with the ladder up. He felt his lip swell and the inside of his gum cut. The pain from those barely healed spots which were now reinjured . . . the disorientation—

His stomach lurched, having enough of the abuse. Mal expelled most of Lady's dinner all over the wall in front of him which rebounded and flew about in the wild gravity back all over himself. More pain shot through his face as the stomach acid in his mouth got into the injuries on his lips and gums. Mal grabbed that pain, using it to try to bring things into focus. He forced his eyes upward.

It was there. He gathered his feet under himself feeling the deck, now slippery from the contents of his stomach. But he managed to push himself up the wall, almost to standing, pushing his face literally into the keyboard of the wall control unit at the edge of the alcove.

With his eyes only an inch away from the keyboard, he could read it well enough. But the trouble he had getting his hand up, getting one finger out and slowly punching in a command. Halfway through his stomach, now mostly empty tried to turn itself inside out. He had to stop, had to turn his face away lest he foul the keyboard—

After what seemed like forever Mal stabbed his finger onto the 'enter' button.

It was like someone turned the world off.

It was only when the silence fell that one realized just how noisy it had been. The shifting gravity had spilled _everything_ in the cabin and continued to throw it about with each shift of gravity. When Mal had used his Captain's Override command to shut _everything_ down, _everything_ had come to a complete halt . . . including gravity.

In the dim lighting of the emergency battery circuits, all of Mal's tools, his books, all of it were slowly moving about the cabin. Some of it was banging/bumping into him, rebounding away across the cabin to rebound yet again in another direction.

Mal managed to get a towel from the head, wiping as much of the slime as he could from his face and front. Only then did he float up, having to steady himself against the zero gee to snap the ladder and his hatch into the front passageway open. He then carefully drifted up. The light was even dimmer in the passageway area for the backup lights were fewer and farther between.

The silence in the passageway was deafening.

"Zoe! Wash! Kaylee!" he called. With that he was rewarded by noises.

The door to Zoe/Wash's compartment slammed open. "We're here sir," Zoe's voice was . . . really tight. An edge hovered over her normal, calm, cool control.

Mal countered by giving orders. "You two go check on the passengers. If their able to function, Wash, get to the bridge and standby to do a restart when Kaylee gets things going again. Plan on doing it without gravity until we can figure out what went wrong."

Mal then pulled himself the rest of the way out of his own compartment and out into the passage heading up toward Kaylee's hatch. He didn't even wait for an acknowledgement from Zoe or bother to see if his First Mate and Pilot were on their way. He was in fact grateful for the dim light since Zoe would not have been able to see him and his current less-than-pleasant condition.

Mal's hands were still shaking and he felt a bit unhinged with the stink/taste of his own vomit in his nose and mouth as he floated forward. He was moving on instinct and he didn't like it. He hadn't been this shook in a while. He needed to get himself reestablished but first he had to see to his people. He reached Kaylee's hatch, pushing it open and calling, "Kaylee? You in there?"

There was silence from the darkness below. Mal opened his mouth to call Zoe for help when a shaky voice replied to him from the darkness down the ladder.

"Is—is it okay? Is it gonna move more?"

"It's in full shutdown. All of it, even the gravity. Are you okay?"

"I—I think so. I'm—I'm all tangled up."

"Does she need help?"

Mal's head snapped around for the voice came from behind him. In the dimness, the figure seemed to fill the entire area behind it with a large blob of blackness that pulsed and waved in the dimness.

"What in the—"

"It's me Captain. My hair is floating loose behind me."

"Lady," Mal breathed, glad to be able to put a rational description to what his eyes were seeing. Her tone was cool and in control, the underlining inflection of command was there but held in reserve. He didn't know how she had managed to get her hatch open without his hearing but it didn't matter to him. What mattered, "are you—" he started to ask her.

"I am unharmed Captain," Lady told him in the same, calm, firmly professional tone. "Does Kaylee need help?"

"She says she's tangled up. See what you can do."

"Yes sir," and with a smooth glide Lady was going past him down into Kaylee's cabin. Her movements were sure, almost sensuous in the dim light. The fact that she was so much in control was enough to allow Mal to take the moment get a firmer handle on his own self. He took the time for a long, slow breath before pushing himself across the passageway.

Mal started to push open the hatch to Jayne's compartment calling, "Jayne? You okay—"

"Don't open the hatch!" came the shout back up at him. Mal hastily pulled it almost closed, leaving just enough of a gap to call—

"What—?"

"A box of grenades are loose. I can't tell which ones they are with all the other junk floating around in here. I don't want to chance it them getting out." The Merc's voice sounded worried . . . and guilty.

"Why did you—" Mal started to ask then bit his tongue. It wasn't the time or place to go there. But—

"Is there something . . . special 'bout these grenades Jayne?"

There was a long moment of tense silence before, "I was playin with them towards makin 'em booby traps. The pins are shaved and'll come out real easily. I'm afraid that if the gravity comes back on and . . . they hit the deck hard enough, the pins will pop loose."

Mal closed his eyes as if in pain for a moment. It took a moment of thought before, "Jayne, if the pins were that loose, wouldn't the shaking they just had be enough to do the same thing?"

"Maybe, maybe not Mal. You want I should take the chance? One might be just hangin on waitin for one more bump."

Mal took another long slow breath before, "make it fast Jayne. We ain't got all night."

"Don't I know it."

With that, Mal moved back out to the center of the passageway where he tried his best to return to a state as calm and cool as Lady. It was difficult because of the pain in his face, the rotten taste in his mouth coupled with the smell of his own slime. His stomach had recovered somewhat, he was no stranger to the odor of puke (especially his own) but the triple whammy of pain, puke and zero gee was hindering the process. So he tried to push it aside, concentrating on the sounds he could now hear, Lady murmuring to Kaylee, the sound of movement coming from Zoe and Wash's cabin (accented by an occasional exclamation from Wash), the constant string of what was probably curses coming through the barely opened hatch from Jayne.

Several minutes went by before Mal was able to see Kaylee gently floating up out of her compartment. Her hair was wild about her head but not to the degree of Lady's. Mal could see her look at him, and maybe wrinkle her nose. "Captain, what happened? What's that smell?"

"My stomach didn't like the ride," he said curtly. "Don't have time for any of that right now." Kaylee had floated up and out to the side allowing Lady and the massive blob of her hair to rise up out of the opening. "The two of you get to the engine room and try to figure out what happened," Mal told the pair. "If you can get lighting and life support back on line do it. But don't bring the gravity or dampeners back until Zoe and I have had a chance to do a quick structural check and an internal inspection _and_ Wash has had a chance to isolate that new software in case that's part of the problem."

Kaylee nodded already thinking and asking, "so you want us to bring power back but with the Grav Boot cut out and—?"

Mal nodded, "the Grav Dampener as well. My bet is that the new piloting software is somehow in conflict with the Dampener. There was suppose to be a much greater degree of control of the Dampener with this new program and that may be what's gone screwy. I'd rather not take the chance of the Dampener going fully wild and crushing us to paste."

There was an uncomfortable pause. "Aren't supposed to have any of the engine systems running without the Dampener bein up," Kaylee's tone was most unhappy. "But I see what you're sayin. If I can cut the Dampeners connection to the flight control system and let it fall back on its own internal programin will that be okay?"

"Only if you're sure that there's no way the flight control software can do an automatic reroute."

"We'll take care of it Captain," Kaylee's voice sounded more certain now. Mal waved them off and the two women started down the passageway. Mal frowned and called, "Lady, you best get somethin to corral all that hair before you get hung up on somethin and break your neck."

"I'll get a towel out of the galley and make a hairnet out of it."

"You do that." As the two women drifted off staying close to the overhead, Zoe and Wash floated up out of their cabin. Zoe looked at him, but in the light he couldn't see her face. Wash however wrinkled his nose with a 'uugghhh!"

"I know," he muttered unhappily, "I'll go and take care of it right now."

Mal almost collided into Inara at the bend of the companionway going down to the front ladder of the Cargo Bay. The two of them kind of ricocheted off of each other, she going high, he low."

"Mal!" she sounded relieved. Then her nose scrunched. "What's that smell? Are you—"

"I took a pretty good smack in the face from a wall and lost my cookies alright," he replied grumpily. "Sorry if it offends your fine sensibilities."

Inara didn't know whether or not to glare at his tone but at the moment—

"Let's go to my shuttle. My gravity is still up. I can take a look at where you're injured. We can clean you up there."

* * *

Mal almost stumbled as he crossed the interface at the entrance to Inara's shuttle. The fact that she made it across the threshold in a single fluid movement annoyed him as well . . . only because he knew that the Companion would always make such things look easy. Coming through the curtain he could also look down at himself in the full lighting—

His tee shirt and boxers in which he had been sleeping were a slime covered mess—

His tee and boxers—

He stiffened up. He had forgotten that he was dressed so. Both Lady and Kaylee looked like they had managed to get their overalls on; Zoe and Wash had been fully dressed. The discomfort on several levels hit him square in the chest. "Ah—" he opened his mouth to voice his opinion that _this was a bad idea_—

"Strip!" And Inara's tone was firm and professional.

"Ah—" Mal managed again.

"I said strip! I will not have your clothing fowling the air in here any longer than necessary. Get _out_ of them and put them in here." Inara had produced a waste bag from somewhere and was standing in front of him holding it . . . standing patiently with a most impatient look on her face.

"Ah—" Mal managed for a third time.

Inara cocked her head wonderingly. "Are you indicating that you are more comfortable sitting on a rock buck assed naked after having your clothing stolen by a lying con-artist bitch—"

"Hey," Mal managed after finally finding his voice. "That was part of the plan."

Inara cocked her head the other way and told him in a sweet girly voice, "I didn't believe it then either." She motioned even more forcefully with the bag, the look in her eyes getting even darker.

Mal rolled his eyes as he half turned from her and performed the requested task. He then stood with his hands clasped 'in front' of himself while Inara disappeared for a moment, returning with a basin of water and towels. She pointedly did not look at him as she wetted the towels and passed them over to him.

Mal vigorously scrubbed things clean, making pains not to look at Inara as he did so. They repeatedly passed clean/dirty towels back and forth, Inara rinsing and bagging the used towels as Mal took care of all the slime that he could find. Finally when they were done, Inara carried the basin and bag back out of sight again. Mal stood uncomfortably for—

"Put this on," Inara had appeared with a robe beside him.

"Oh . . . ah . . . thanks . . . " Mal shrugged into the thing . . . wincing inside because the thing was so light and . . . silky. Before he knew what he was saying he said, "I just—"

"Shut up," Inara told him very firmly as she turned, stooped and came back up, her first aid kit now in her hands. "Keep your mouth shut," was her just-as-firm directive as she reached out to feel his swollen lips/chin/jaw.

A very firm 'clinical' touch.

She worked for a few minutes with the contents of her kit, at one point she told him, "open your mouth."

"But you told me to shut it," was his little boy reply.

She rolled her eyes in exasperation.

Finally Inara finished with her ministrations. She squatted in front of Mal, carefully replacing everything back into the kit. Mal stood uncomfortably for a moment before he managed to say, "I just want you to know how much I appreciate the fact that you decided to—"

"I'm just as curious about Lady as you are," Inara interrupted sharply without looking at him. "She's the reason why I haven't . . . " Inara let it break off.

Mal's . . . kind of went a little . . . limp inside. He looked at her; she didn't look at him for it was difficult for him to hide the hurt that lurked behind his eyes. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times before he managed to say in a very matter-of-fact tone, "well, that's one of the things I appreciate. You've . . . helped with her . . . and I guess helped her quite a piece." His words and thoughts ran out together.

The silence held between the two of them. Finally Inara turned to him with 'that' look on her face. "Things . . . haven't changed Mal. I intend to leave when I think it's the best time to do so." She looked away thinking _and times like these make me wish that I had already gone._

_Now the time for the not-quite-a-lie_ she thought as she went on. "Only the fact that I was one of the ones who pushed to keep Lady is why I'm still here. I have this . . . feeling that . . . I'm somehow needed until the truth of her mystery is found out."

_I have feelings too_ Mal thought. And among those feelings was the guilt of his actions that were probably driving Inara away—

Feelings that now . . . would probably never be voiced.

Inara gave Mal a . . . look that was clearly forced . . . even if her tone was just as matter-of-fact as his had been. "So we're perfectly clear Mal. Once things are resolved about Lady . . . I'll be going on my way."

Mal nodded but couldn't keep from asking, "and if all the mysteries of Lady are never resolved?"

Inara sucked in half a breath—

And then forced herself to say calmly, "then I'll be leaving when I find a good place to do so."

_A good place . . . not a good time_ Mal thought. _That's an awful final kind of thinkin . . . and I guess that I can't expect much better._

"Fine," he said as noise started to come into the shuttle from the direction of the hatch. "If I could barrow this (he indicated the robe) long enough to get myself back into some decent clothes."

Inara nodded to him. "That's why you have it."

Mal's face turned into that 'bad-little-boy' look, "and here I was hopin that you wanted to make my skin pearly soft by wearing this flimsy—"

As Zoe came in leading Simon, River and Book, Inara's face went red and her tone, "I want that back in ten minutes Mal. Ten Minutes! And you get one bit of dirt, oil or _any_ kind of 'fluid' on it and I'll deduct the cost of cleaning or replacement out of my rent!"

With that, Mal turned and with what could only be called a 'strut', he went by all those who had just walked in. With the Captain's departure from the shuttle, all those eyes then swung back to the Companion.

Inara took a long slow breath before waving her hands around. "Everyone have a seat." Inside she was grateful that Mal had once again managed to camouflage any and all of the tension between the two of them from all the others.

The others. The shipboard family that she would someday soon she would run away from.

But not right now.

* * *

"Okay, guide me through this," Lady said as she floated next to Kaylee working a tool belt around her waist with the fluid confidence of someone well familiar with how things handle in a weightless environment. But Kaylee really wasn't thinking about Lady's obvious zero-gee experience, she was concentrating more on the firm, professional tone of the older woman's voice to stave off any feelings left over from the last time they had 'run out of gas'. The young engineer had too many bad memories from that time.

Kaylee checked her own heavy duty light, a match to the one she had just given Lady and then turned the beam up the service ladder to their right saying, "top and to the right, two boxes _aft_ of that panel we rewired the day before we arrived at Beylix, the entire top tier of circuits and first three terminals of the second tier, pull and block one wire each, won't matter which one. That'll disconnect all the 'sensors' laid out through _Serenity _that put information into the Grav Boot." She turned and started back toward the front of the compartment as Lady, started up toward the service hatch with a graceful twist and kick off.

"I'm gonna wire a patch," Kaylee went on with a raised tone to carry the distance, "from the batteries to my main panel to get power to it. Once that's done, we'll go to limited power here to bring up the black boxes we'll need to reboot the Grav Dampener in local control. With that done we can bring the internal power and life support back on-line followed by the engines so we don't waste the batteries too badly."

"How long will the batteries last?" Lady called down, her voice echoing in the service bay.

"Hard to say," Kaylee replied with a resigned tone. "Like so much they're third and forth hand so it's always possible to blow out a cell or something. They're suppose to be good for 'bout 120 hours in full emergency mode. Lot less as you turn more things on."

There was a moment before Lady's reply came down to her, but in it, Kaylee could hear the confident smile on the older woman's face, "I'm sure she won't let us down in our need young lady. Let's just give her whatever help _she_ needs to make it happen."

Kaylee felt a smile come to her own face as any apprehension inside of her fled away into the void. "Seems that you've got another fan," the young mechanic said in the voice that she used when she talked to _Serenity_. "An considerin just what kind of woman that Lady might be, I would take that as a mighty big compliment."

* * *

Mal had managed to get back to his cabin with a powerful flashlight and a handvac. Between the two he managed to suck up all the floating slime that he could find. It took him several turns to complete the job for with Life Support out; the atmosphere in his cabin was just too . . . thick to take for long. The . . . residue sticking to the bulkhead and floor under the control pad he wiped up as best he could with all of his towels and a few older shirts, all of which went into the head. It wouldn't really be clean until he could properly rinse it all down but it would do in a pinch. A clean set of clothes and he was back out into the forward companion way. That done, he floated up toward the bridge intentionally _not_ taking the robe back to Inara's shuttle.

To find the stars bobbing and weaving outside of the forward viewports. It was an uncomfortable view. It could only mean that the ship was in fact in an uncontrolled tumble in all axis's. That could also mean—

Wash wasn't on the bridge yet

"Mal, that you?"

Or at least, not _on_ the bridge. Mal floated forward in order to look down into the avionics bay. "Any idea where we are?" he asked voicing his biggest concern.

"Well," Wash spoke back up at him, the sound muffled because the pilot had his front half buried in one of the electronic lockers, "if you're worried about us being in a degrading orbit or a collision course with something small like a planet or moon, we seem to be in luck." Wash pulled his head back up and gave Mal a 'look'. "Thanks to my insistence that we not cut the cord on Pengalis cluster of planets and moons along with your even more firm insistence that we not hop over her pole, we were in fact on an outbound course from the planet when things failed." That acknowledgement out of the way, Wash stuck his head back into the locker. "Other than that, I can't tell. Until I can get power back up to the board, we won't have any idea about just exactly where we are or exactly what direction we're going in other than 'thataway'."

Mal glanced up at the spinning stars asking, "you think we've changed course?"

"Almost positive of it," Wash said in a light tone as he continued to work at whatever it was that he was doing. "The glimpses I've had of Pengali as it goes spinning by the windows were definitely different from what I would expect if we had maintained our original planned heading. I suspect that we are . . . I think Lady would use the expression 'haring off', on a vector that will get us away from Pengali without crossing the plane of _any_ of its planets or moons and that (grunt as he tugged something) has probably used up all our luck for the next several decades." With that he pulled his head out of the locker and turned, floating up the ladder way back to the bridge proper. Mal noted that Wash was trailing what looked to be some kind of cables.

The pilot went in under the pilot's station and started working with the other end of the cable. Mal looked back and forth between the two stations and asked, "backup battery power from avionics?"

"Yeah," Wash confirmed. "If I can get this rigged, I can power up the consoles on local control and disconnect the software before we power up."

Mal nodded in understanding. "Good thought. Hate to lose it again if you couldn't kill it in time."

"That might be rather uncomfortable," Wash agreed in that tone he used when he was speaking while concentrating on something else. "Could suddenly turn us into something that looked like that stew that Lady made up last week."

Mal made a face. "You think it would have that much power?"

"If it's the software that's buggy there is no way I could kill it before it made ground meat out of us. And considering what our actual trajectory speed is right now compounded by the obvious (one hand came out and waved at the universe in general) rate of tumbling that we can see out the ports, the inertia factor built up in the Grav Dump is probably something akin to a small nuke warhead."

Mal blinked. "How," he wondered aloud, "could it have gotten that high? What happened to make you think we cranked on that much velocity?"

"Pengali is way out of place Mal," Wash said in an almost tired tone. "The only reason that could have happened is that the Main Engine fired at max burn. Not Hard Burn because Kaylee has to do that manually from in back. But the engines actual design specification maximum allowable thrust. How long they did that I won't be able to tell until I get us straightened out. But it's obvious that it did happen. I can guess that the vector of the thrust was generally in one direction for a while but then the things started to go wild which did two things. It left us in the tumble that we see as the attitude thrusters attempted to correct the gyrations the engine thrust was throwing us into and two, the reason why the gravity went crazy."

Mal nodded on his own as Wash's explanation worked its way through his brain. "The Grav Boot was getting scrambled signals from the Grav Dampener 'cause it was overloaded."

Wash grunted again and his voice strained as he tried to force something with his hands under the control panel. "We're damn lucky the Dampener didn't overload and kick off let alone simply blow up from the abuse. I'm pretty sure that maybe _that_ is what was supposed to have killed us even though there were several other ways readily available for backup."

Mal . . . blinked again. This time he was unable to say anything. He simply stared a Wash for a moment until the Pilot glanced at him before providing an explanation.

"Mal, it's a simple fact if we had been going in between Pengali and its planets as I had intended, if the Dampener didn't kill us, which it did not, we'd be getting ready to either smack not so gently into one of those planets or moons or getting ready to barbeque ourselves as we roared at a rather high rate of speed into Pengalis rather inhospitable atmo. In fact, if I was going to be brutally honest, I would have to admit that if that last part happened, it would have happened more than a half hour ago denying us this delightful little chat."

Mal gave this a moment's thought feeling his insides tighten. "You're sayin this is—?

Wash snorted. "If I was a betting man. Don't know for sure of course, this software was recommended by Belgium so unless he's suddenly got something in for us I don't think that this is anything intentional on his part. Maybe it did just go buggy and in the worst possible way. I mean, I never did figure out just what caused the last batch of software to go buggy but at least that did it slowly over time."

The Pilot shifted around into another position as he went on. "But the fact that if we had stayed on our original course, a course that we've taken countless times before all over the Verse, a course that almost any not-so-legal ship—which would include many of our friends and quite a few of our enemies—follows just about anywhere they go when their Captain isn't concerned about time on the anti-rad shields, a course that consists of cutting inside the close orbits of protosuns, gas giants, planets and any number of interesting and beautiful stellar phenomena, we almost certainly would not be having this pleasant conversation right now." Wash grunted as he shoved against something, an action made more difficult by the zero-g. "That kind of timing just isn't right," he continued. "It's not as if something in the software 'executed' a command that caused it to fritz cause we were just cruisin along, not even a course correction in sight. Nothing I can think of can account for a reason why it would have gone at that moment unless it was counting down on a timer."

Mal took this in for a moment before saying, "so you think that its sabotage? But I would have to agree that it wouldn't be Belgium. Who could it be then?"

"Don't know," Wash grated as he again shoved at something. He then floated out from under the console and pulled himself around toward his pilot's seat. "But I find the situation to be highly suspicious." He managed to settle into the seat as well as freefall would let him. He worked to get buckled in with one hand even as the other hand started to push buttons on the panel where lights started to come to life. "It's not like we're loved and respected by all of mankind." Wash then kind of shrugged. "Well, maybe Jayne is. He's got a planet that makes statues of him."

"So now what?" Mal asked.

Wash turned to a panel on the side of the cockpit wall and rapidly entered several commands. He then breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "New software disconnected and quarantined." He then turned back laying his hands on the controls. "Now I get to earn my pay by trying to stop all this tumbling manually with just the thrusters." He started doing things, saying under his breath, "just because I failed this the first time in training, my instructor wanted to wash me out. I couldn't tell him the real reason why I couldn't do it."

Mal raised an eyebrow. "And that was?"

"I'd have to kill you if I told you," was Wash's matter-of-fact reply. "And since you'd most certainly kill me for trying to kill you we simply won't bring that sordid little story up."

* * *

Zoe did a slow turning float around the Cargo Bay. With Jayne's help (once the idiot had gotten all his half-assed grenades made safe), they had cleared the Bay of all the drifting boxes/equipment/stuff that hadn't been tied down or had broken lose. A quick but through structural inspection had followed. _That_ had been followed by—

"Okay everybody," came her husband's voice over the P/A. "We're gonna try it again in thirty. Hang onto something solid."

Zoe reached over grabbing the handrails on the main gangway. She steeled herself once again, trusting Kaylee but aware just how . . . eccentric the ship was.

Then gravity came back.

Fortunately it was only for a moment.

Wash's tired voice came through the intercom again, "okay, Kaylee, let us know when you're ready to try again.

Zoe blew a tired breath up past her nose as she had seen Lady do several times. With that, she launched herself to grab a couple of items which had lurched loose wondering just how long this 'eccentic' ship intended to play its games.

* * *

"Kayleeeeeee!" Wash yelled into the hand talkie that was providing communication between the bridge and the engine room. He could _hear_ the groan ripping up the forward corridor at him as the very frame of the ship reacted to the twisting of its internal gravity. The waves battered Wash into the console in front of him three—four times—

Then as fast as it started, it kicked off.

Wash gave a groan of his own. It had felt for a moment there as if he had been on a medieval torture rack that had first stretched him then tried to crush him. He sucked in a painful breath before keying the talkie which he spoke into with a _very_ soft and sincere tone, "Kaylee? You didn't warn us about that one. Can we have a little bit of advanced notice _please_?"

Back in the Engine Room, Kaylee couldn't reply right away. She was holding the side of her head as the sudden influx of uncontrolled gravity has solidly slammed that side of her head into the circuit box.

"Kaylee?" asked a voice closer at hand causing the Engineer to wave Lady away with her other hand.

"So'kay," she managed as she shook the last of the blow off. She then gave the mass of wiring before her an intense look as she hissed, "doesn't make sense thou. Everything's been cut out. It should be a completely stand alone system now."

Lady was floating just under the overhead holding on by one hand. "Then what do you suspect?"

Kaylee bit her lower lip as she shook her head. "Somethin's still scramblin the signal." She looked back over her shoulder at the older woman. "Can't think what it would be though. As I said, the whole thing should be stand alone now."

"Kaylee?" came Wash's voice over the talkie which was currently making its way leisurely across the center of the Engine Room from where the last wild of grave waves had sent it flying. Kaylee turned toward it but Lady waved her away. "Wait a bit, let your brain unscramble from that blow." With that Lady gracefully launched herself, floating like a bird over to the talkie, grabbing it out of mid-air, twisting about and gently but unerringly sending back Kaylee's way.

"You're sure good at that," Kaylee observed (not for the first time) as she caught the talkie. She fumbled for a moment before she was able to key it. "Sorry Wash, I didn't think that the system was going to trigger that time."

Wash grimaced as he rubbed his chest where it had struck the control panel. "Well, at this point, just hold tight. I've brought the rest of the original flight control software back online and I'm gonna reengage the gyros. That should totally stabilize us. If we can get rid of the little bit of yaw and roll that I couldn't get out manually, maybe the system will reset."

Kaylee smiled, "go ahead and do it Wash. We're ready in here for it." She looked back over her shoulder. Sure enough, Lady had latched onto the rear bulkhead of the Engine Room after her flight to get the talkie. They exchanged nods as Lady took a firm grip. Kaylee floated away from the circuit box to her control panel where she grabbed on tight.

Wash reached up to grab the P/A mike which was swirling about it an arc set by the length of its cord. After several swipes he managed to grab it. "Everyone get a good hold on something. This is gonna cause a real jerk although the actual physical movement shouldn't be too much." With that, he punched several buttons on his now well lit panel.

_**JERK!**_

Wash winced as several 'something's' crashed around despite Mal and his wife's attempts to track down everything loose. At least he hoped it was something loose and not a major structural member or something similar.

But a glance out the ports told his trained eyes that the tiny bit of movement that had still been visible was now gone. They were stable and locked in all planes. He reached for the walkie talkie again. "Okay Kaylee, try it again."

Kaylee was intently watching her panel, muttering as she typed in commands, "off-line, isolate, memory purge . . . reboot . . . wait . . . wait . . . still wait . . . . . initialize . . . wait . . . wait . . . wait . . . wait . . . still waiting . . . _still_ waiting—" Kaylee frowned and then whined "damnit. Lady! Do it!"

Lady was next to a circuit box halfway up the wall, a jury rigged thing that normally took a ladder to reach. At the bottom right hand corner of the box was a large red 'X' over which the words 'hit here' were written. With the palm on one hand, she gave the box a resounding _**SMACK!**_

Kaylee of course heard the smack and she was frowning at her panel waiting—

"Alright," she grinned as the program finally kicked in. She started to enter commands again with one hand as she brought up the walkie talkie with the other, "gonna do it Wash."

"Thirty seconds," was the reply in order for the Pilot to pass the word along.

Kaylee's finger hovered for a moment; she gave a glance at Lady to make sure she was prepared. She knew the woman would be but it was still Kaylee's responsibility as the Engineer—

"On Line!"

The two women felt gravity come back, smooth, efficient and full force—

As at the same moment, a godawful sound roared in through the hatchway from the after passageway. The two women stared at each other for a moment, mystified—

"KAYLEE!" screamed Wash's voice through the walkie talkie.

Kaylee's fingers flew and in a heartbeat, "OFFLINE"

The noise went away as their did their gravity.

A slow, massive sounding _groan_ seemed to run throughout the entire ship. After that was silence.

Then Mal's voice came over the P/A. "Alight folks. We're gonna take us a little break. Let's all meet in the Dining area and get some food in us."

* * *

A/N: I have to make mention that the bit about Lady hitting the electrical equipment box to make the system boot is not literary license. In the mid 1970's I was stationed on an Aggressive class minesweeper homeported out of Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. Being that is was a wooden (real wood-to defeat magnetic mines) ship that was part of the 'Mine Force" (meaning that it wasn't front line/cool/breaking news stuff), that spent most of its time training 'reserve cadres' from all around the country, we were bottom-of-the-barrel in a LOT of things. This meant that we had to usually make do with what we had and had to be inventive with what we could get. To get to the point, our surface search radar had an intermittent bug that refused to be found and fixed. But it was found that if we were out playing on the 'Big Pond' and the radar suddenly fitzed out, if you went over and smacked the transmitter equipment box mounted on the bulkhead (wall) in a certain place, the radar came back on line. In the end, the 'bottom-right-corner' of the box was marked with a big red 'X' with the scrawled instructions to 'hit here'. As far as I know it worked every time.

I'll take this moment to thank everyone for reading. If possible, I'd like to hear from a few to know if I'm doing things okay. In the meantime, I would like to publicly thank RionaEire for her consistent reviewing and general cheerful nature.

Everyone Take Care

Until Then

I Shall Remain

Your Humble and Devoted Servant

The Wise Duck


	22. Device

Chapter Twenty Two – Device

* * *

"What happened?" Kaylee exclaimed as she floated into the Dining Area as Mal and Wash did the same from the forward hatch.

"Why did it take for me to yell at you," Wash's voice was angry even if he face showing that he didn't like the thought of yelling at the Engineer. "Another couple of seconds and I think my insides would have been mush."

Kaylee seemed taken aback; she floated in place, jaw hanging wide open, blocking Lady from following through behind her. "Wha—" was all she could manage.

Mal caught on right away and he held out a restraining arm in front of Wash before the Pilot could get off another salvo. "You guys didn't have any trouble with the gravity." He made it a statement rather than a question.

"Well . . . yeah," was Kaylee's answer. Her eyes then went a little wide as a hand firmly pushed against her thigh, moving her out of the way of the hatch as Lady glided herself through. "Oh sorry," she apologized giving the older woman a quick glance. She then looked back across the length of the Dining area even as Jayne followed by Inara and the rest became visible behind Wash and Mal. "We didn't have time to run a confirmation check 'fore Wash yelled but it," Kaylee looked to Lady for confirmation, "it felt right to us."

Lady gave a nod of confirmation. "It did seem to be fixed to us sir."

Wash had a sheepish look on his face now, "well . . . it was anything but to us." He floated over toward the galley but he looked right at Kaylee. "Sorry," he told her with a sincere head nod. "But it seemed to be twice as worse as it had been from before." He anchored himself with one hand, rubbing the back of his neck with the other. "I thought it was going to tear us apart the way the structure was howling."

"It was just the forward half," Zoe put it as she came onto the Dining Area behind Lady and Kaylee. "I was in the hatch between the Cargo Deck and the Lounge Area. Everything on the aft side was fine. The forward side," she stopped and took a breath, "if Jayne and Lady can give me a hand, we've got quite a mess to clean up with everything that broke loose."

"Let's give it a rest for a minute," Mal ordered. "Lady, what can you do for some grub under zero gee?"

"Well, let's see," she replied as she launched herself on a graceful three-rebound (down to the deck, over to the Dining table, over to the galley counter, twist and land) path that put her in front of the pantry. "Nothing that's going to disintegrate of course or will readily come apart if manipulated too much. Nothing hot that could scald someone if it got out of control . . . we should have something."

"I'll help," Inara called following over to join Lady. Her flowing robes made the movement more sensuous but it was plain that Lady was much more at home with weightlessness than the Companion.

The other's found spots to wait in. Mal's hand motions brought him, Wash, Kaylee and Zoe together next to the Dining table.

"Mr. Washburne here," Mal told the two women, "has laid out a pretty good case for what all has happened to be sabotage." The two women's reactions were as expected so Mal went on. "Anybody got an idea on how it might have happened or a clue why things are still happenen the way they are?"

Zoe was giving the Captain a hard look. "You don't think that Belgium—"

Mal waved that away with a hand. "No, I don't think for a second that Belgium knew 'bout it. And all of his people are suppose to be trustworthy. But given the thing with the Scrappers, a loose screw may have gotten through. There's no other was to explain it unless it actually was the new flight software."

Kaylee and Wash both shook their heads. Kaylee took up the explanation. "Every indication that we're finding is that _something_ scrambled the systems and that something was not the flight software. The Engineering Log detected a system spike before it was scrambled and that spike did not come from flight control."

"Where did it come from?" Zoe asked.

Kaylee shrugged. "That's the problem. It shows as a random event somewhere in the lines. You get that sometimes where you're too close to a real strong cosmic rad source—"

"Which we were not," Wash noted.

"Or some other high discharge event," Kaylee finished.

Mal thought for a moment before, "could it be that whatever spiked the system is what's still screwing up the gravity?"

Both Pilot and Engineer's brows furrowed in thought. "No way to tell," Kaylee said finally. "Could be though 'cause we haven't fired up anything but basic power to the flight deck, lights and life support. If there's other systems that are still scrambled we don't know 'bout them yet." She shrugged. "We could fire a few up to see what happened."

"Now that I think about it," Wash mused, "that's another reason why it's not the flight software. I have power back to the board that's not affected by whatever is scrambling the Grav system. That means the problem is probably in a separate run of lines."

Now Zoe's face frowned. "Which section of cable runs do the sensors for the Grav systems run? "

Kaylee frowned . . . then looked up and over to where the ceiling of the Dining area met the wall.

Mal followed her eyes with his and said it all for them. "The same one that had the Cortex work done on them," Mal voice held a mixture of anger and satisfaction.

"And that could be the reason why the Grav is still screwed up forward," Kaylee said with confidence. "The system is split right in this room and I would bet that whatever it is, it's (she pointed toward the front for the Dining area) in _that_ section. When I reset the Grav Boot after Wash reengaged the gyros, it's obvious that the reset took aft but not forward 'cause you guys were still screwed up while we were okay. That's 'cause whatever it is its still spiking the sensors in the forward section and the firewall between the two sections that's up when we're in maintenance mode is protectin the aft part of the ship." She then pointed a finger at a point in the wall. "And the system splits right 'thair' (she accented the word with a grim smile)."

Mal looked to Kaylee, "get back to the Engine Room and take everything down. I don't want to take a chance that anything gets damaged if whatever our little trick is decides that it wants to be difficult when we find it and pull it off." He looked up at the overhead. "It'll be tight but if it's up there I'll find—"

Kaylee gave him a look. "Do you have any idea what it is that you'll be lookin for?"

Mal . . . got that 'caught ya' look on his face. "Well, no. But that'd be no better than what you—"

"Unlike you my Captain sir whom I love whole bunches when I'm not mad at him . . . _I_ would know if something was there that didn't belong . . . cause I've been through those trunks how many times rewirin things . . . over and over again." Kaylee shook her head and looked up with a resigned look on her face. "Geeze, must have been in there six times in the last four months just cause of the problem that we had Belgium fix."

"She's got you there sir," Zoe told Mal with an agreeing look on her face."

"Lady's been back with me enough to watch things while we're black," Kaylee went on. "I'll take it down, get up and in, find the . . . thing or whatever it is and then go back and power up." She then gave Mal a sweet smile, "'side's, I'll fit in there no problem. You on the other hand—"

"Jayne, get some of the hand lights," Mal called pointedly ignoring Kaylee's smile. He looked over to the galley, "Lady, hold on the grub. If Kaylee's right, we might get to eat it under gravity." He then cast his eyes and voice around the whole compartment, "everyone get on back to your places. Let's see if a little mouse or somethin ate a wire before breakfast."

Kaylee hid the smile on her face by swinging herself around. "Come'on Lady," she called, "let's get ready for me to play trunk rat again."

* * *

There was one problem however in playing 'trunk rat' in zero gee. Kaylee found that her clothing had a tendency to get caught more often because she had a tendency to float 'up' into all the sharp and pointy objects running along the top of the trunk rather than her staying firmly on the flat crawlspace that ran along the bottom of the trunk. She also tended to twist and drift, smacking the top of her head into a protruding box or catching her feet in a pocket between two components.

So she took her time and was careful. She examined all the conduits and wire runs carefully, using a mirror to look behind them in the spaces where there was enough room to slip something behind something. It was slow and time consuming. At one point her stomach growled so loud that it echoed in the narrow passage.

Mal had his head stuck through the service hatch into the crawlway to keep an eye on Kaylee while Jayne floated along the wall at the joint of it and the overhead using the noise of Kaylee's her movement to keep track of her. For once, the Merc did not chafe at the long period of waiting. While he might get inpatient of other things and circumstances, he was more than aware of just how many things there were that could happen to a spaceship, especially one as knocked about as _Serenity_ (although he would never voice such a thought around either Mal or Kaylee).

Time went by—

Kaylee reached out up over her head and grasped at a couple of bundled cable runs to ease herself into the next section—

She grabbed something that had a definite different feel than the surface of the run itself—

That . . . and it was slimy.

"Ughh," she grunted as she pulled her hand back. In the light of her hand lamp, all she could see was some kind of clear paste on her hand. She absently wiped it on the rag tucked through the belt of her overalls. She then used her legs and other arm to leverage herself up even with the section where her hand had been. Using the mirror and hand lamp, she took a look—

"Got something!"

Mal's head, far down the tube (the inspection hatch for the trunk was at the aft end of the Dining Area), perked up at Kaylee's voice. He held his breath for the moment.

Kaylee examined the object in the mirror. It was thin and flat, about the size of a personal comm device. It was covered with the paste or gel. _Must be how they attached it to the run, _she thought._ It would also help in making a good connection from whatever electronics are in the device to the wiring inside the run_.

She could see a touch pad and a couple of LED's—

In an abstract sort of way, Kaylee suddenly wondered just how scared she was now that she had found it. The feeling was caused by the sensation that she could feel her chest slowly tighten—

As Kaylee shifted about to face the area intending to get herself set to reach in and pull the device off, a feeling came over her—

She fumbled with the mirror and hand lamp. It was as if the hand holding the hand lamp . . . the one which had first felt the device . . . her palm felt as if it was starting to burn.

Her breathing . . . her chest was still—

She got the hand lamp/mirror repositioned—

Her eyes went wide. There were new LED's lit on the device that had not been on before.

There . . . the hand holding the mirror . . . it felt as if it was getting hot inside of the little cubbyhole where the device rested.

Kaylee realized that her vision seemed to be blurring slightly.

She couldn't catch her breath.

The burning in her one palm—

The heat washing over her other hand—

On impulse, she turned off the hand lamp.

In the mirror, she saw that the device was starting to glow with heat!

"SHIT!" she spit.

"What is it?" Mal called with alarm.

"Whatever it is, it's going into battery overload. It's gonna flare and fry everything!"

Kaylee felt the sudden nausea rise within her, her vision blurred again, she realized that she was sweating, she was laboring to breathe, the palm of her one hand was now burning fiercely—

Just like the device.

"Can you get it off?" cried Mal.

"Have to," Kaylee called back. She was fumbling with the rag in her belt. "If it goes in here, it'll take out this whole group of conduits and runs. Take us days to identify and rewire everything!" She had the rag, it was nowhere thick enough to protect her hands _but my one hand is already burning so badly_

"Can you get back here—" Mal started.

"No time Mal! I need a hole in the wall NOW!"

Mal pushed himself back down into the Dining Area. "Jayne, make a hole in front of Kaylee!"

Jayne was startled. He looked up at the wall in front of him. _Make a hole? How?_ He frantically looked around.

Kaylee felt the nausea rise in her throat. Her breathing—

She had as much of the rag wadded in the palm of her hand as she could manage.

The device was glowing enough to actually give off a faint light.

Gritting her teeth _Simon! You better be able to fix this!_

She reached in and grabbed—

Kaylee screamed.

"JAYNE!" yelled Mal.

The Merc pushed himself straight down from the overhead. He cocked his legs, hit the deck letting his legs absorb the energy/momentum and then he pushed off/up just as hard as he could. He twisted as he did so, rushing up to the wall, turning his side into it—

With a yell, using his other arm, fist against palm, to help force the blow, he drove his elbow into the wall. The material gave way—

Kaylee jerked—the agony in her hand driving the nausea away as the crawlspace surface inches from her head shattered and splintered, what little light in the Dining Area shining up into the darkness from the hole. She rolled onto her stomach and as carefully as she could, trying to focus through the agony in her hand . . . and the feeling of blackness rising within her, she brought her hand with the device over—

Smacking her wrist at the edge of the hole—

She thanked God that it actually came off. She had been afraid that it had fused to her palm.

Jayne had yanked his elbow out of the hole he had made, ignoring the pain and the laceration across his elbow that went with it. Newton's law (whoever he was) had caused him to rebound away from the hole—

Something came floating through it, moving diagonally across the compartment—

"Get away from it!" Mal yelled at him. "It's gonna flare!

Jayne didn't have to be told twice. Even in the dim emergency light it was starting to glow. It had to be seconds before it was going to ignite. He hit the deck and rebounded, pushing himself hard in the direction of the forward hatch. Mal pushed himself away from the service hatch, aiming for the floor behind the Dining table—

The flare lit up the inside of the room like the inside of the sun. It sounded like ripping cloth.

In moments it was gone except for a small, perfectly round ball of toxic smoke which was expanding slowly around the point of ignition.

Mal raised his head above the edge of the table; Jayne poked his head through the hatch.

"Get Simon," Mal ordered. "And get some sealed vacs. Close the hatch so no vent breeze blows it around."

"Got it," Jayne called back even as he heaved the hatch closed.

Mal floated for a moment. He didn't want to approach the cloud but the new hole in the wall would allow him to talk directly to Kaylee. He eyed the expansion of the cloud. It was moving very slowly. It might be more than a few minutes before it was larger than the softball sized sphere it currently was. Its expansion should be slow enough to form a plan as to how to get Kaylee out of the crawlway if they were unable to vacuum it up.

"Kaylee," Mal called as he floated up to the hole, "Jayne's gone to get Simon. He'll give you somethin for the pain and then we'll work at getting you out."

The reply sounded like someone getting sick. In moments Mal could smell it. It reminded him of his own stomach problems at this beginning of this whole mess. But—

"It's okay Kaylee, it's over. You did good."

". . . can't breathe."

Any other praise caught in Mal's throat. But for only a moment,

"Kaylee, what's the matter? What happened?"

"T—t—there . . . there was something on . . . on the device. It got . . . got on my hand. BURNS. C—can't breathe. Can't see—"

Mal felt his insides go cold. What could have been—

"What was it Kaylee? What was on it?"

"A—a p—paste of some kind."

Mal knew instantly

_Poison!_

* * *

Lady kept her concentration on the panel. Through the echoes of the aft passageway she had heard the several moments of shouting from the Dining Area and a blast of soundless light, more intense than lightning up close had lit the passageway and most of the Engine Room. These events only registered on the periphery of her mind. Something deep inside her told her that what she was doing had been trained into her until it had become instinct. The 'ability to focus on a task at hand while the building burned down around her' seemed to come to her as naturally as breathing. That same feeling brought a vague impression that she had first heard of that phrase sometime in her childhood.

"Lady!"

Her head jerked up. It was the Captain's voice. Hard and clear.

"Lady, get in here!"  
There was no hesitation and in moments she was like a missile going down the center of the aft passageway. Her arms cast out wide as she braked at the rear Dining area hatch, taking in the slowly expanding cloud of what could only be smoke debris and the sight of the Captain floating next to a hole in the top edge of the wall.

Mal glanced at her. "Find a fire axe or something quick. Kaylee found the bomb but it had poison on it and her breathin's shuttin' down. Jayne's gone to get Simon but he didn't know 'bout this. They won't have the breathin gear with them."

Lady cast her eyes around her even as she asked, "can we open up the wall the same way the workmen did to install the new equipment?

"We don't have the time or tools. That's why Kaylee always used the crawlspace even if she had to go through the whole thing."

"Where is—?" Lady barked as she twisted around to look down the aft passageway. She couldn't see anything around her and she was _damning_ herself for not taking a full check of where all emergency or lifesaving equipment was stored when she came aboard. "What did you use for the hole you've already got?"

"Jayne used his elbow."

Out of the corner of his eye, Mal saw Lady twist about and launch herself toward him. He looked at her, "what—?"

"_MOVE_!" That was a _Command_ that no military veteran could ignore. The next words out of Lady's mouth were equally authoritative. "I'll get her out! Go let Simon know he needs the breathing gear!"

Mal pushed himself away from the wall, careful that his trajectory kept him clear of the cloud of smoke.

Lady reached the hole in the wall/ceiling joint. Without hesitation she thrust her one arm completely into the hole that Jayne had made, twisting it about, using the purchase that anchor point gave her to hold her in place. Mal saw her raise her other arm, taking a moment as if to concentrate—

Then was a sharp _"KIA!"_ Lady punched her fist through the wall.

She did it again a moment later . . . and then again. Mal marveled at her control. It just her fist going through not her whole arm so there was little chance of her striking Kaylee behind the wall. Mal turned away at that moment for he had reached the forward hatch. Even as he was opening it to use the control panel on the other side of it to call Simon, he heard Lady's _"KIA!"_ again and again.

This was Mal's first time seeing Lady 'in action' even if all he could actually see was her from the backside. But the tone of her 'orders', her decisiveness and determination—

He'd known very few soldiers so capable.

Now . . . after seeing it for himself . . . he was just as mystified as he had been before.

But now he felt better about it.

* * *

Coming up the rear ladder from the Lounge area and the Infirmary, Simon, Jayne, Book and Zoe were overloaded with gear and clumsy in their weightless movements due to that gear and their own urgent rush. At the corner of the ladder where it turned inward toward the aft companionway, Simon and Jayne had collided getting all tangled up. Some words were snapped but forgotten in the rush to get to Kaylee. Zoe pushed them apart and got them started again with even sharper words. In a bunch they came into the aft passageway turning into the Dining area.

Simon felt a very momentary wave of relief as he came through the Dining area rear hatch. Mal and Lady had Kaylee out of the wall. The three of them were next to the near end of the Dining table. Lady was 'sitting' on the corner edge of the table, her legs wrapped down around the table leg at the corner to hold her in place. She was leaning backwards over the table (her back had to be killing her) for her arms were wrapped around Kaylee's torso from behind, her face turned sideways against the upper part of the Engineers back. She was anchored to the table and she was anchoring Kaylee to her. Mal floated above the two women—

Mal was giving life saving rescue breathing to Kaylee, difficult but not impossible in zero-gee if it was done right. Simon didn't know if it had been Lady or Mal to take the lead in making it happen—

With that the Doctor forced all other thoughts out of his mind. He was already opening the case on the emergency rescue breathing gear. Book helped the Doctor get things rigged. "Captain," Simon ordered and Mal broke off. Simon quickly got the mask and tube in place even as he asked, "her pulse?"

"It was there but I don't know how strong," was Mal's reply.

Simon finished with the strap on the mask and nodded to Book who switched the machine on. After a moment, the lights lit green. No blockage and oxygen was getting to Kaylee's lungs. With that done, Simon reached in to check her carotid artery.

"Pulse is good. I'm going to assume that whatever the poison is, it's strictly going for her respiratory system." He motioned for the bag that Jayne was holding.

Mal floated above it all. He looked to Zoe. "Zoe, take over for Lady."

Zoe looked at Lady, noticing for the first time that one of Lady's fists looked like it was shredded, the knuckles and back of the hand bleeding. Looking to the three foot long hole in the wall/ceiling joint with the accompanying cluster of debris which was just staring to make a layer about mid-height in the Dining area—

"She did that with her _fist,_" the First Mate asked in almost wonder.

Jayne looked up startled. He looked down at Lady, saw her fist—

A sullen look came over his face. He muttered something under his breath looking down into the medical case he was holding so he wouldn't have to look at Lady.

Zoe moved in beside Lady. She spoke a word into her ear at which time Lady let go of Kaylee. As she moved out from behind the injured Engineer, Mal got his first good look at Lady's face.

It was that look of fearsome focus that he had glimpsed outside of the bar after the fight with the Scrappers. Mal looked up to see that Wash, Inara and River had joined the rest in the Dining area. He motioned for Inara to look to Lady even as he called, "Jayne, hand that over to the Shepherd. Wash, you're with us. We need to get some vacs and corral that cloud for it disperses much further."

"On it," Wash acknowledged with a wave of his hand.

"Yeah, sure," was the Merc's surly reply.

Simon injected an antidote into Kaylee's arm.

* * *

By the time Mal, Wash and Jayne had finished collecting the toxic smoke things on board had pretty much leveled out. The three men returned in time to see Simon remove the breathing mask from a pale faced Kaylee. Mal looked at her with a pointed expression. She smiled weakly, "yeah, I know. Gloves."

She looked down to where Simon was working to remove pieces of the rag she had used which had melted into her palm. All traces of the gel were gone but Simon had thoroughly cleaned the entire hand just to be sure. "They just make my hands feel all clumsy is all," she lamented.

"Don't think it would have made much difference," Simon mused. He looked up at Mal. "I'm pretty sure that whatever that stuff was; and I have a few guesses, that it was mixed in with penetrating oil. It wouldn't have been anywhere near as fast but it would have gone through the material of a work glove in under a minute." He looked down at Kaylee with a gentle smile. "What saved you was the fact that it took so long for it to be discovered. It lost potency with all the exposure to the air. The gel and the oil was supposed to slow that down as well. But if you had come into contact with it right when it was first applied, your breathing would have been completely stopped in under thirty seconds."

Mal nodded in understanding. "If someone was checkin for a device, say a routine inspection after Belgium's work was completed, and they found it and pulled it off activating the flare, they would of been dead 'fore they realized it and the flare still would have done a lot of damage." He looked at the hole in the wall. "If it had happened is space it still might have killed the ship."

"Well, I'm glad that we were such slugs 'bout it." Kaylee replied with a relieved look.

"Kaylee," Mal asked, "you recon that we're okay to bring things back up?"

Kaylee forced her eyes wide open. "Yeah, sure, we should be." She looked to Simon. "Am I okay to go back to work."

Simon was obviously 'not happy'. He looked to Mal. "She won't be able to use the hand for about a week and she's probably going to have some bouts of weakness and nausea for the next day or two. But if she doesn't do anything really physical like climb ladders or crawl under turbo's it should be okay."

"Well, no time like the present," Kaylee said as she started to try and unwrap the blanket she was wrapped in.

Mal reached out to pat her shoulder. "Take another minute. I need to check on your partner."

Kaylee's face became slightly alarmed. "Lady? Did something happen to her?"

Simon patted her arm. "She hurt her hand getting you out of the tunnel. Inara and Book are bandaging her."

Kaylee looked guilty for that.

Mal had meanwhile already floated over to the observation lounge where Lady was sitting with Inara, Book and River. "How's the hand?" he asked as he arrested his movement against the corner of the lounge.

"Doesn't seem to be any permanent damage," Book declared looking up at Mal. "She has full motion and there doesn't appear to be pain in anything but the damage to the skin."

Mal nodded, looking to Lady herself sitting between Inara and Book. "That was pretty impressive. Did it just come back to you that you could do something like that or did something just spur you?"

Lady's head had been lowered; it appeared that she was looking at the wrapped hand which was resting in her lap. After a moment she looked up at Mal—

"It happened again," she simply said.

Inara and Book both looked . . . confused. They both looked up at the Captain for an explanation.

To find that Mal's face was as confused as theirs . . . at least for the moment it took him to realize what it was that Lady was talking about.

"You blanked again," he confirmed.

Lady nodded. Inara and Booked looked at her and each other.

"Do you remember anything?" Mal asked.

Lady nodded. "This time was different," she said. "It was kind of like my knowing that I was going to force myself through the assistant managers hold inside that bar. I remember what I was 'going to do' and that I intended to do just that to get through the wall to Kaylee. But the last thing I actually remember was yelling at you to move—"

Mal snorted. "That wasn't a yell, that was a Sergeant Major's bark."

Lady shrugged that statement off. "The next thing I remember was when Book started to wrap this (she held up her injured hand)."

"Not," Book told her, the smile on his face taking the grimness out of his tone, "that you made that easy the way your hand was shaking." He shook his head. "The adrenalin rush must have been something fierce."

Lady just shrugged again, looking back to Mal, telling him, "everything else is blank but seeing the damage (she waved her other hand at both her wrapped one and the hole/debris of the damaged wall), as I said, I remember what I intended to do so in this case it's not as great a shock as the other times have been."

"You still lose your memory?" Inara asked.

"Just like what happened in the Cargo Bay with the Independents. Whenever she's in a fight it seems," Mal confirmed.

Lady nodded her head toward Inara in confirmation of Mal's words.

Book's face frowned as he considered this. "How odd," he mused as he gave Inara a glance that she returned. "I don't think that we were aware that such an occurrence was continuing." He looked back at Lady. "I of course do not have the Doctor's training and understanding but we Shepherd's do have a form of basic medical training in order to help comfort the sick and I have to confess that . . . it's just odd." He shrugged with a smile to convey his continued confusion.

"Does it vary at all?" Inara asked. She then gave Book a smile even as she explained to Lady, "we Companions also have a thorough medical briefing in order that we might be able to help handicapped clients or those . . . " she hesitated a moment before concluding, "or those who are approaching end-of-life for one reason or another and seek what little pleasure they can receive in their last hours." Her eyes seemed to be challenging the Shepherd to refute the validity of such work.

Book defused that look with a gentle smile saying, "a most noble cause."

Mal frowned his disapproval of the exchange—

"Not really," Lady explained. "What I'm finding is . . . the first time the Captain mentioned, the time with Kaylee and the Independents," Lady sounded hesitant at admitting this information, "that was like all of them have been, things went totally . . . blank. Only . . . after a couple of weeks," this she nodded at Mal for it was new information to him, "some of it came back. But what did come back . . . it was as if it was through a haze. All that is left to me is an impression of what it is I did."

"Most curious," Book mused.

"Well anywho—" Mal broke in, "I realize that between the two of you, you've only got a single set of hands but is it possible that you and Kaylee could see if losin that thing solved our Grav problem."

Lady nodded, immediately unsnapping the lounge chair lap belt, carefully extracting herself from the chair, "certainly Captain."

Mal gave her a half smile. "Youall understand now that I have turn ogre in order to get some of my pride back after you ordering me 'bout so."

Lady gave his a raised eyebrow of consideration. A moment later, in a most 'neutral' tone, Lady replied, "considering the alacrity with which you performed to my most reasonable request I can hardly understand why you would think such an instance would be considered a presumption against either your masculinity or your competent authority as Captain of this ship."

Both of Mal's eyebrows went up. Inara raised a hand before her face to hide her smile. Book looked at him smugly; River asked innocently, "shall I translate for you Captain?"

Mal's response was a Captainly growl sending her and Kaylee on their way.

* * *

The greasy faced youth known as Dublin stumbled through the dark alley in the early morning hours. He was really drunk and it felt really good. The last several weeks had felt really good. Having finally managed to get into Amalgamated after years of begging and pleading with various uncles and cousins, he finally felt at home with the extended family that he had always wanted but had never known. His own family, parents and little sister had been killed in a fire which had swept the slums when he had just been a boy. The fact that his father had married outside of the Clan had caused him to be rejected by the Clan when he was orphaned. Ever since that day he had been seeking a way to show that he was worthy enough to be accepted. One of the reasons why he had gone to work for Belgium was that working for one of the top servicing companies on the planet always was rewarded if the worker provided the insider information which would help the Clan get ahead of its rivals.

Dublin had been skeptical of this when his uncle Clyde, the only uncle who would talk to him, informed the teen of this fact of life. But when Dublin saw certain cousins intentionally going into companies outside of the Clan for several years before being brought over to a Clan company at a level much higher than 'entry level', he slowly worked the concept out. He made his decision at eighteen, had gotten work with Belgium as a gofer and had gone on from there. He had provided several 'tips' over the years but it had never been enough it seemed for the Clan to accept him and offer him a position to come over to. He had been getting frustrated and depressed that 'it' was never going to happen—

Then, when the Clan had come to him and told him what they wanted, what he needed to do, there hadn't been a moment's hesitation on his part.

Nor were there any regrets afterwards.

Now he was living the good life. The pay was the same as when he had worked for Belgium but he had housing within the Clan shanty town. It was a win/win situation for his hovel was both larger and cheaper that the place he had had in the town proper. His laundry was being cared for in the Clan's woman run communal service, he was eating in the Clans woman run communal kitchen—

Some of the girls, cousins all . . . they were noticing him. A couple of them had actually _talked_ to him. One of them just now in the bar that the Clan frequented had actually rubbed up against him with her—

Someone stepped out into the alley in front of him—

Someone _really_ big—

Someone—

Dublin felt almost sober . . . from the fear . . . as his knees began to knock and his bladder—

They stood in silence for almost an entire minute.

"I know that you were aware of how much I value both my reputation and the reputation of my business."

Dublin tried to open his mouth, tried to say _something_—

"I also you know how I react when something threatens my business or my reputation."

"I didn't—" Dublin managed to squeak out.

"I know you did it and you know you did it. The fact that you started pissin your pants the moment you saw me tells me that I'm right. That's fine 'cause then I don't have to go over the facts as to why I know it was you—although I will anyway just to see if you can _shi_ your pants as well. Fact's like you insistin that you do the seal up at the end of the job by yourself, which meant nobody else could do the final check which might have found your little plant. Also, you were the one who gave that written note that I was 'gone' to the gate guard and it was you who distributed the 'freshly charged' radio batteries that morning." He chuckled in a most deadly fashion. "Think 'bout it you stupid loser. Not one but three clues crawlin up your backside."

"My Clan—" Dublin started again, it coming out as a croak because he was staring Death in the face.

"Let your Clan do whatever. In a war between your Clan and me and my people, who will win, 'specially considerin the Counsels mood toward the all Clans right now?" He chuckled again. "Your Clan will back down 'cause you're still a throwaway to them. That and all the other Clan's won't support making this bigger either. They won't go to war with me over something as small as you."

Dublin fell to his knees—

Because he knew it was true.

"Your body will be found and it will be recognizable. And I'm not doin that to be nice. I really need I guess to send the message out again that no one crosses me or makes me look the fool. Since you didn't get the message . . . and since your Clan tried to get someone through me . . . you get to become that example."

Dublin felt his bowels joining his bladder. "How—?"

There was a chuckle. "They survived obviously. He sent me a message. Some of his people got hurt and that made him . . . and by extension me . . . really mad. Not as mad as I would have been if they had simply disappeared and the word spread around that my software or maintenance work caused their disappearance. If that had happened, I'd probably take out the ones in your Clan that put the hit on them, even if it meant startin a full blow war. Not that I don't intend to make my displeasure known to them as well. We'll see what happens to your Clan when so one will buy their scrap for a while."

The big figure moved as if it was stretching. "But everything's okay now. They came out of it no worse than they were. And I sent a message back telling them that I'd take care of the problem."

There was the sound of massive knuckles cracking. "Shall we take care of the problem then?"

Dublin's last sound was a whimper.


	23. Interaction

Chapter Twenty Three – Interaction

* * *

Simon stepped down into the Dining Area, his ears immediately 'perking' when he heard Kaylee's voice. He had been coming in to refill his water container but he normally did not expect to see the Engineer during the day when she was normally 'at work' somewhere within the bowels of the ship. When she wasn't buried deep inside something, he religiously avoided trying to be around her as he did not wish to give Wash or Jayne any cause to tease her about her 'slacking off' due to his 'interference'. But in a 'neutral' place such as the Dining Area he would certainly take advantage of a spontaneous situation.

Almost at once however, he heard Lady's voice making him realize that Kaylee wasn't alone. But he didn't hesitate. Of anyone aboard, Lady's 'newcomer' status was the least threatening as far as any comments regarding his awkward relationship with the Engineer. Simon also felt that Lady was probably good for Kaylee, giving the Engineer another person who might not be considered a borderline criminal (such as the Captain let alone an outright criminal like a certain mercenary) to interact with. Although Simon had to balance this summation against the veiled threat of what Lady might be.

It wasn't that he expected Lady to turn on them at this point—not unless she was waiting for a sign from an unknown source or maybe a—trigger, key or signal to 'activate' her that had yet to be sent. At this point, only the latter seemed likely to Simon and as long as the Captain kept them on the move he didn't think such an event was probable. To him the real threat was whoever had 'lost' Lady had to be looking for her. He personally did not think it was the Government—he thought it was the same people who had abused River; one of the government backed corporations. And Simon had the feeling that those people would look until they found Lady—just as he knew that they would continue to look for his sister until they found her as well.

Because of that opinion, Simon felt he had a pretty good idea knew just who it was that Lady belonged too; but that being said he had yet to be sure of just _what_ Lady was. He was leaning toward something akin to a corporate espionage agent; possibly one corporation against another which would explain her beauty, pose, education, special abilities as well as all the hardware inside of her. Simon felt that the 'deadly' side of Lady was probably a 'leaving no witnesses' type of thing rather than an assassin but he had to acknowledge that he had nothing solid to base that on. Other than that—

The only other thing that had come to him was that Lady might have been an agent who had renounced her allegiances, tried to escape to a better life and had barely avoid a concentrated effort to neutralize her. He knew that some of the others were seriously considering everything Lady had said about—being from somewhere else—but Simon could put no credence into such a theory. While he was now far less naive than he had been about some of the world's realities, he couldn't believe that the Alliance would have any reason to change or hide any part of what had happened to Earth-that-Was or the Great Migration. Somehow, even if there had been survivors left on Earth or some other splinter factions who had gone their own way to someplace else, _something_ would have been said about it _somewhere_ even if it was just urban legend. As it was Simon couldn't even remember hearing a grade school rumor about such a thing.

If that was the case, then what was it that Lady was 'remembering'? Simon had developed his own theory in regards to this even if he hadn't thrown it out for general consideration among those aboard _Serenity_. Knowing what he now knew about the corruption and the decadence of the government and some of the corporations, he had to assume that Lady had some kind of 'conditioning' done to her mind. Something like the 'programming' he thought he could see in River as far as her wanting to fight. Only Lady's was probably a fail-safe meant to make her seem 'crazy' if she ever went rogue. Certainly many of those in the Boarder and Rim would consider her completely insane if she tried to convince them that she was from someplace outside of the Verse. Some of the more primitive and ignorant places—such as the one that kidnapped River and him not all that long ago—might even do the same thing to Lady as what had almost happened to River; being burned as a 'witch'. Such an act would effectively take care of a lost agent for someone.

Simon admitted that several of his thoughts and speculations contradicted each other but he felt that he was trying to keep all his options open as well as explore all potential possibilities. He didn't feel that he could trust anyone on board _Serenity_ to keep an open mind about the situation except for maybe the Shepherd. The rest (even Kaylee) were too unsophisticated a group which could be counted on to take much of what they encountered at face value without looking for layers underneath that spelled trouble. They were a simple bunch of individuals; they had never been involved in the cutthroat competition within the universities for the attention of the major medical consortiums or the backroom politics of operations versus profits that he had been involved in once he was out of school and in within the practicing medical corporations. Simon in all honesty had to admit that due to his family background and money, he had been somewhat isolated from the last part. But in regards to the former part, there had been plenty of other scion's of other wealthy families with whom he had had to battle in order to both graduate at the level he had and then once out 'in the real world' the even bigger battle to attain the status and place he'd reached within the Medical Profession in general and the Trauma Community specifically.

Simon came into the front of the galley where he could see—

The two women where—

Simon stood for a moment, mouth half open—

Kaylee looked up from her work, an inquiring eyebrow raised as if she didn't understand or approve of Simon's obvious surprise—

Lady had both eyebrows raised—it also looked as if she was about to stifle a chuckle.

"Ah—" Simon managed.

"Yes?" Kaylee wondered.

"Ah—" Simon managed.

"What?" Kaylee wondered again.

"Ah—"

"It's a turkey!" Kaylee proclaimed loudly. "You have to reach up inside of it to get the gizzard! God! Didn't you ever go into your kitchen with your mom growing up? I mean you're a surgeon! Hands up inside of dead things pullin guts out should be no big deal for you!"

"Never been in a kitchen," Simon said weakly. "Never really seen raw food being prepared other than—," he made a weak wave toward the galley where the two women were working—an indication of his time on board _Serenity._

"Grew up too rich," Kaylee said, but there was teasing rather than scorn in her tone.

"Kaylee promised," Lady said in a tone that clearly said she was enjoying herself, "to show me her grandmother's recipe for turkey soup." A smile threatened to twitch up the corner of her mouth, "Because of the injuries to our hands, we're kinda taking turns doing the dirty work." She then allowed the smile to blossom when she added, "didn't think it would be such a traumatic experience for the uninitiated."

"Didn't know you could cook something like that." Simon instantly regretted that spontaneous statement as Kaylee's face darkened.

"I come from a country town Simon," the teasing tone was gone now, replaced in Kaylee's tone by a hint of heat and hurt. "With a pretty good family. Of course I can cook. That cake I made for your birthday only turned out that way 'cause I didn't have all the right ingredients." She now looked a little sullen. "We found out 'bout your birthday after we'd hit The Black—there was no way to get the right stuff."

"I'm sorry," Simon said hastily. "I didn't mean—"

"We know you didn't," Lady broke in smoothly even as she laid a calming hand on Kaylee's shoulder. "We both know that you wouldn't intentionally think something like that."

Simon had managed to get enough mental grip to know that he should keep his mouth shut at that moment.

"At the same time," Lady continued, more than a hint of her calm authority coming into her voice, "you shouldn't be so surprised and . . . well . . . shocked when you find out something new and different about people you thought you knew."

A stern eye from Lady added emphasis to her words. "Something tells me Simon, that I spent years working with people and yet shutting myself off from everything about them other than what I needed to know to get whatever the task we had at hand done." Lady's tone was grim. "It was a part of what happened to me when I put myself into a shell, pulling the door closed behind me. It was a part of something which I believe deep down inside came very close to costing me dearly." She now gave him a soft smile. "Don't let something like that happen to you."

Simon nodded at her wise words, but his eyes were on Kaylee, looking at her, telling her he was sorry, asking her to forgive him—

But Kaylee's eyes were still a little hard and hurt—

Then Lady, using the hand she had on Kaylee's shoulder shook it ever so slightly.

"And you young lady, don't be so touchy about something like this."

Kaylee turned her face to Lady, telling the woman in an annoyed tone. "He knows I cook. I've cooked for the crew every once in a while."

That got a raised eyebrow from Lady causing Kaylee to look down at the counter in front of her. "Okay, not very often—usually I'm pretty dirty from doin work on the boat."

Lady gave Kaylee's shoulder an affectionate squeeze. "It's all about learning and talking and listening and understanding." Lady gave the Engineer a pointed look. "Have the two of you ever actually talked about what your home life was like? I mean the down-and-dirty-day-to-day part . . . like learning your grandmothers cooking?"

Simon realized that he and Kaylee hadn't—and that Kaylee looked very uncomfortable with this fact. Lady looked between the two of them and after a moment she looked at Kaylee, saying in a 'knowing' tone, "let me guess, you thought that telling Simon about your simple small town family life would make you look plain and well . . . simple. Especially considering that Simon," Lady now looked up at the Doctor, the warning plain in her eyes despite the tone in her voice, "is from a rich sophisticated, extremely educated and powerful part of the upper section of society."

After a moment, Kaylee nodded her head; followed by looking up at Simon, telling him, "sorry."

Lady smiled. "Then maybe you need too." She then looked at Simon, "and you need to see the inside of a kitchen for a little bit."

After a moment Simon reluctantly nodded.

Which caused Kaylee to grin—

Which after another moment caused Simon to smile as well.

* * *

Inara did her best to thrust daggers with her eyes as she asserted with feeling, "do you have _any_ idea just how—how—how narrow and parochial that sounds?"

Mal was leaning back against one of the support post of the Cargo Bay catwalk, his arms folded in front of him, his head tilted back against the support which required him to turn his eyes 'downward and to the side' in order to actually see and truly appreciate just how much he was annoying the Companion who was standing in front of the ladder that led up into the forward companionway.

"Oh, I don't know—" he replied in a most offhand way. "Seems to me that most normal folks would see it that way." He gave Inara what could only be described as a 'false' smile. "Course most 'normal' folks wouldn't have the culture and appreciation that you learn in a—"

Inara's eyes to turn into instant anger. "Don't say it!" she snapped.

Mal's mouth snapped closed on his next teasing statement—his eyes momentarily closing as he mentally kicked himself in the groin.

_Never mention whorehouse—never mention whorehouse_ he cursed silently to himself. _And never EVER mention Nandi—_

Inara started to turn away in anger—

Mal's brain flailed around trying to find the words/way to apologize—

At that moment Mal's eyes flipped up the ladder behind the Companion as movement there came into his view—

Lady stopped at the top of the companionway, her face clearly showing that she perceived that she was in the process of interrupting something.

The words were out of Mal's mouth before his brain truly engaged. "Why don't we ask Lady what she thinks?"

Inara stood motionless for a long moment; she then threw a 'smoking' look back over her shoulder toward Mal, her eyes clearly telling him that she knew he was simply attempting damage control. The Companions head then turned away around to look up at Lady for a moment before her head again turned to look back at him—

Now her look was telling Mal _this is only because I don't want to put Lady in a bad spot by stalking away_

"Fine," is what Inara actually _said _in a _very_ neutral tone_._ The Companion then looked back up the ladder, asking Lady in a much warmer voice, "I'm sorry to impose on you—do you mind?"

Lady seemed to consider this a moment (her body language still hesitant/uncomfortable as if she _knew_ she was intruding) before telling the two of them, "well . . . if I can. That is . . . if it's something I can actually give an opinion on."

Inara gave a look back to Mal, her face proclaiming to him _she's clueless—let's see you worm your way out of this one._

Mal's eyes were locked on the Companion even as his reply was a laconic, "well, seems that we're havin a little cultural disagreement—say city against country." He then looked up at Lady, "I would think—considerin your own very 'cultured' way of expressin yourself that you could well see her side of it. On the other hand—" his eyes returned to Inara, "bein that as far as you or we can tell, you've spent time in the trenches and I do believe that livin like that causes people to see things in the simpler 'county' way." His gaze came back up to Lady, "care to give it a shot?"

Lady's answer was to slowly (and hesitantly) come down the ladder to the deck next to Inara where she stood for a moment looking between the two of them before giving a 'go ahead' gesture with one hand. Mal, despite the trouble he was in with Inara at the moment, actually was enjoying just how uncomfortable and 'normal' Lady was looking and acting. It told him that she wasn't an all-knowing superwoman.

Dagger's 'zapped' at Mal from Inara's eyes for another moment before the Companion turned her face to Lady, the expression there undergoing that complete transition from completely angry to happy/smiling that only women were capable of—

'The Captain and I were discussing culture as in culture, art and music. I maintain (she emphasized the 'I' with a hand on her chest) that music and art are universal—meaning that they are just that—they encompass all." She looked to Mal, the daggers back in her eyes, "except for those who simply have a personal 'dislike' for anything outside of their narrow experience on small, backwater planets." When she finished, Inara nodded her head to Mal that she had finished her opening broadside and that the ball was in his court.

Lady absently bobbed her head for a moment as she took this information in before she looked to Mal.

Who once again folded his arms in front of his chest, saying easily, "now that's not the case at all. All I'm sayin is that it's—what's it called—too—empty for itself. Just because a picture is a mess of mashed up colors that some 'are-test' calls 'spring' or it's two hundred guys playin fancy bugles and fiddles so loud you can't hear yourself think—while it may be 'art' in the book sense, it's way too fancy, overblown and downright (he struggled a moment searching for the concept of) nonsense for anyone with a everyday frame of mind to have to put up with."

"The term you so easily butchered," Inara growled, "is 'too full of itself'—which could very well describe what's the matter is with you. Only in your case what you're full of is the same substance that comes from the rear end of a horse."

That caused Mal's eyes to go wide. "Oh really," he said in retort, his attention back fully on Inara. "Well, at least what came outta that horse was the results of plain simple grass and water instead of some kind of witch's brew of fish eggs and mushrooms and snails and bubbly tooty-fruity drinks!"

Inara's head snapped over into an irate bent, her hands going to her hips as she said, "I don't know why fish eggs, mushrooms and snail should be so strange to you. Those are the kinds of things that barnyard animals find when they root around their pen."

"Just 'cause something ain't fancy don't mean that it's anythin less than some high flutein—"

"And you are so an expert on everything low class. You live, breathe, _you are_ it!"

"Now just a second—" Mal's eyes were now real wide—this was beyond playing—

"If I may—"

Both Inara and Mal were momentarily shocked—they had plunged back into their argument forgetting completely about the woman standing next to the Companion. They looked at each other for a nano-second, clearly embarrassed before looking over at Lady.

Who was looking even more uncomfortable than they felt. But under that discomfort there was another feeling that was even more prevalent in her tone.

It was—an unhappiness, a sorrow—and it wasn't directed at the two before her, it was directed inward, into herself.

"Something tells me that . . . I have had in much of my life, an imperfect understanding of interpersonal relationships. Because of that I cannot say that I currently have an understanding of your relationship (she looked at the both of them when she said this). I can guess—but the fact remains that I don't _know_—and I am unsure if I ever knew or would recognize what it is that you two have. I am not currently getting any flashes that tell me that I have had at least some prior experience with something akin to what I see with the two of you." Lady's look then got 'annoyed', "I knew that I was interrupting an argument—and something else tells me that your intent (she looked straight at Mal) is that I might be used to mitigate the argument—I am forced to submit Captain that I am a very poor choice for that."

Companion and Captain were both more than slightly awkward.

Lady took a deep breath before going on with, "As I have said, I have no memory of who or what is behind me other than the fact that I had _something_ there. Comrades, friends—maybe family—I don't know and the fact that I don't know, that I can't remember that kind of 'good' thing . . . devastates me."

She took another breath and this one _shuddered_—

"I _know_ that I did something _wrong_. And I think that if you believe in God or Fate or whatever then you have to believe that I am being punished for that wrong. For right now, in as far as any feelings, impression or almost memories of past personal relationships in my life, it seems that only what could be described as 'the bad' come to me—as in they come to me as nightmares." She gave the two of them a grim look. "Bad nightmares that have the feel of truth, of things that actually happened in my past rather than the nebulous conjuring of the subconscious"

Inara sucked in a breath, were there _tears_ lurking in the corners of Lady's eyes.

"I'm sorry," Lady grated, sounding not at all sorry. "I'm not quite sure I know why I'm reacting the way I am. But this is so _frustrating_. It's like I _don't_ _want_ to remember the good things about what kind of relationships I've had." Lady's tone went 'angry', "—only the bad—"

Inara reached out, putting on comforting hand on Lady's arm—

"What is it?" the Companion told her in a soft voice.

Lady took a deep breath, visibly wrestling with her emotions before—

"One of those nightmares that I'm having—and most of them reoccur in a fairly regular manner—involve a young man being killed in a completely preventable accident."

Inara sucked in another breath. Mal's eyes took on a hard squint.

Lady's head dropped so that her eyes were hidden, her left hand coming up to rub the back of it against her right cheek. "I can only think that it's a memory from when I was in someone's Space Navy. As I said, it was a preventable accident, a young man suited up for EVA, other personnel all around, a warning not being given before a large heavy gun turret was rotated—"

Lady sucked in a sharp breath, her tone going harsh, "he was crushed to death, caught in the space between the turret and the side of the hull. He didn't realize where he was—what was happening—until it was too late. Because it was EVA-Zero Gee he couldn't move in time when he did realize." A single tear which had been lurking at the corners of Lady's eyes rolled down her cheeks. "Something tells me that young man was very important to me—_personally_ very important to me—and all I could do—because I was right there to witness it—was cry out his name as he died." She sadly shook her head as she was forced try and calm her breathing.

Inara was very uncomfortable. Mal snorted in an offhanded way, shuffled his feet like he was fidgeting.

Lady took another deep breath—

Finally she looked back up, "I repeat; I am a very poor judge of personal relationships Captain. And something _does_ tell me that at one time in my life I managed to make a complete hash out of what personal relationships I did have." She again looked at Mal, "so using me as a buffer in any dispute between other people is very foolish." Her eyes narrowed in what looked like anger. "Especially of anger is involved. And I say that because something else tells me that at another time in my life, I almost destroyed another very important relationship that I had due to _my_ anger at something or someone."

Mal's eyes got narrower.

"Anger," Lady repeated, "just like what I heard here moments ago." She then looked to Inara including the Companion in her gaze. "Anger and ego and frustration and something tells me good old plain unyielding stiff-backed stubbornness almost cost me something which my gut tells me was one of the most important things to ever happen to me."

Inara's face flushed.

"I can't remember," Lady went on in a softer tone, "what I left behind. The good things, the things which might help me get through this trial, things that I _know_ were things that I had sought for, hoped for, longed for for far too long before they finally came into my life. _THAT_ is the largest, most terrible part of all that I am 'missing'."

Lady pulled herself upright, closing her eyes, doing that thing she did when she moved to rein in, control and smother all emotion in her. In a minute her breathing had steadied down. She then opened her eyes and looked at Inara and Mal, "I don't know anything about what kind of a relationship you two have. As I said, I can make a guess but the fact of the matter is that it's none of my business. Her eyes then skewered Mal. "As such, I do not appreciate being drug into something that I should have no business being placed into. If I had all my memories maybe then—" her voice had started to rise with that last sentence but she clamped down on it.

Mal was forced to look away, his lips pursed in a tight line, his face going a little colored—

Lady glared at him for one more minute before turning about to the ladder down to the deck of the Cargo Bay. She reached out to grab the handrail—

"It's not my place to say—" Inara almost startled, she had expected that Lady had been finished. But the tall woman had stopped at the top of the ladder, speaking to the two of them without looking back. "—how you two conduct your affairs or your relationship with each other. But I can't help but feel . . . saddened by what I heard in both your voices when you were arguing. You might consider that if what the two of you have doesn't work for whatever reason or reasons or if right now is simply a rough period for you. . . I would ask the two of you to control the arguing. I can't realistically say not to argue; something tells me that I use to be a master at arguing with just about everyone and anyone. But at least if you have to argue, keep it to yourselves and keep it focused in order to use it to work out the differences between the two of you."

Lady then took a single step down the ladder—hesitating—

"I guess what I'm trying to say," she went on, "even though I _know_ that it's not my bloody business to do so— at least try to lessen the bad memories you two are making." She finally turned her head back around, capturing both Inara and Mal with her eyes, "all _I_ have right now are _bad_ memories. Think about that. Think what kind of outlook that would give a person."

Mal and Inara looked at each other. Inara was embarrassed, Mal was angry and guilty. At that moment, Lady said to them in a sad tone, "my pardon. I said this is none of my business and yet I am chastising you over it. As I told you earlier Captain, I'm not really a people person. I feel very . . . awkward and I am . . . unable to make things clearer to myself let alone the two of you. I hope I have not offended but—"

Lady turned her head away from the two of them—

She raised the hand not holding onto the handrail which was balled into a fist—

"It's _so frustrating!_" she grated. "I see the relationship you two have, Zoe and Wash's relationship, Simon and Kaylee's and Simon and his sisters—I _know_ that I had _something_—and I can't _remember!"_

Lady's tone then became very 'tired'—

"At least the two of you have your memories and I would hope that you have the good to go with the bad. So don't destroy them . . . the good memories with pointless anger. If you argue . . . do so to work problems out . . . not just to fight in order to fight and cause pain."

Lady glanced back over her shoulder. "Like I said, you two have your memories—I only have nightmares."

With that she started down the ladder.

After a moment, Inara turned around to look at Mal—

Who couldn't look at Inara as his head was lowered.

Inara stood statue like—until Mal's head came back up. Their eyes met—

There was . . . underneath the anger and embarrassment . . . an understanding and acknowledgement between the two of them . . . but there was also a barrier. A barrier that was more hers than his but one that he honestly acknowledged was of his making.

But it was another barrier—one that was hers alone—one that had been causing problems with their relationship from the moment it started. For it was a barrier that Inara could not remove for reasons that she could not tell him, other reasons beyond their immediate past, reasons that Mal didn't even know existed.

For they were reasons that Inara herself feared and could not force herself to confront.

For the moment at least, they could nod their heads at each other, the argument past, the tedious balance restored for the moment.

A moment that would last until Inara left. For only she knew the true reason why she could not stay.

* * *

The next day, Lady was halfway up the ladder from into the area in front of the Passenger Dorms when she noticed River. The younger woman was in the narrow space on top of the Infirmary. By the way she was positioned; Lady guessed that River was in one of her non-responsive states—

Even as she watched, River's head suddenly jerked upright. The girl rolled partially over, staring intently into a portion of the overhead mere inches from her face. Lady could tell that River was intently listening to something only she could hear.

Lady continued on her way up, her step only quickening a little.

She made her way directly to the Bridge.

"Roger _Farthest Star_, we appreciate the info. _Serenity_ out."

Wash finished the communications conversation, hanging the radio mike back up as Lady stepped onto the Bridge. The Pilot glanced over his shoulder at her, "hey."

"Hey," she said back to him as she walked up behind him, taking an educated guess, "company?"

"Yeah," was Wash's reply nodding at one of his screens, "just another passing in the night truth be told. Seems that they heard from another ship 'bout Fed's patrolling out of the normal areas and were kind enough to pass the info along."

"That was nice of them," Lady observed carefully noting the position of the passing ship to their own and just what the angle would have been if someone was to 'look' in the direction of that ship—

* * *

Zoe woke in her usual manner just before the alarm would have sounded to wake her. This allowed her the time for a single stretch before she reached out to shut the alarm off. Not that it would have made much difference if it had sounded for at the moment she was the sole occupant of her and her husband's cabin.

Their string of incredible good luck as far as jobs seemed to be holding for Mal had managed to secure a multi-point contract throughout the _Zhu Que_ system, delivering a large consignment of clerical items to various third party customers of their client. It left them bouncing all over the systems 13 worlds and 25 moons because the client had set the delivery priority meaning that they bypassed some of the planets/moon that were further down the list rather than making the deliveries in an orderly/logical/fuel efficient way. But as the client was paying for that fuel as well as their time, Mal wasn't complaining. He was complaining about some landing fees that the client hadn't told him about.

But the haphazard schedule and overly complicated routing meant that they were back to having to stand Bridge Watch. The traffic patterns they had to cross (and sometimes re-cross) and proximity of some of their destinations to major Alliance freight nodes with the accompanying Fed patrols meant that they had to be on their toes. So at the moment, Mr. Washburne was currently on the Bridge and Mrs. Washburne was getting up to relieve him.

It was a few minutes later that Zoe, after going back to the Dining Area where she had found a recently make pot of coffee (which had to be 'Lady made' rather than her husband's because it actually tasted good), moved up the forward passageway to the ladder leading up to the Bridge. The presence of the coffee told her that Lady had to be awake (Zoe was unable to figure out just when the woman slept), she could hear Lady and her husband talking as she moved up the ladder onto the Bridge itself.

She had also expected to find the two of them in their usual places, Wash in his chair and Lady leaning back against the front of the co-pilots panel—

But to her momentary surprise, it was Lady who was in the pilot's seat with her husband bent over her pointing out things with the controls.

Zoe stopped—she wasn't 'upset'—she knew that Wash wouldn't stray on her or even get 'cozy' with another woman. That trust in her husband was a given. She also remembered the tone and conviction that had been in Lady's voice during that one mention of her being married during 'Jayne's Incident' in the Dining Area. Zoe guessed that Lady and whomever she was married too had a relationship not unlike hers and Wash's.

What did come to the mind of _Serenity's_ First Mate as she saw the two of them seemingly concentrating on the control panel in front of them, was a something which fell under the category of 'maybe not good'—

"She's not actually flying is she?"

Wash jumped—startled. Lady did not; Zoe figured that Lady had to have detected her approach even if the woman hadn't elected to tell the man next to her about the presence of someone else.

"No ma'am, I'm not," Lady said back to Zoe in an 'everyday' tone. Wash took a step back as if he was afraid that his wife might think that he was 'too close to another woman' (despite the 'trust' in their marriage, after the little incident with Saffron, Wash was more than skittish about such things). The Pilot's movement allowed Lady to swivel the pilots chair around in order for her eyes to firmly meet the First Mates.

"But the incident with Kaylee reminded me that I have been remiss in familiarizing myself with the ships emergency equipment and procedures. I am in the process of correcting that error."

Lady nodded at Wash as she went on. "I would believe that several of those on board have at least guessed if not realized that I spent time in my Galaxy as a pilot. Due to that fact, I felt that I should at least be briefed on this ships flight control systems should a serious emergency happen which might leave me, through no one's fault, as the sole 'pilot' on board."

Zoe took this in and after a moment her look at Lady shifted slightly.

Lady of course, saw the question in Zoe's eyes and answered it without hesitation. "I would not have your husband 'check me out' with actual 'hands-on' flying of his ship without the Captains permission ma'am."

Zoe took in those firm eyes, allowing a 'pregnant' moment to go by before she asked, "was this a spur of the moment idea that you had this morning or is there a reason why you didn't seek the Captains permission beforehand?" Zoe cocked her head in challenge even as she clarified her position with, "you can't tell me Lady that you do too many things of this kind on the 'spur of the moment'. That being said and as our minds seem to work so much alike, it would mean that you thought this five ways through before deciding to _not_ ask the Captain before you did something we know he would be sensitive about." At that point, she also cocked a 'less-than-happy' eyebrow at her husband which brought him under the same set of pointed facts. He at least had the disposition to squirm just slightly under the weight of that eyebrow.

Zoe's eyes then went back to Lady. What she saw caused her a moment's satisfaction for she saw the acknowledgement of the estimation she had just given within Lady's eyes. There was also an amused glint in those same eyes acknowledging the very similar thought processes within the minds of both woman. It reinforced that sense of camaraderie between them.

"Yes," came the straight and honest admission, "I did think it through beforehand. The reason why I'm doing this without the Captain's express knowledge is that I would rather _not_ have him actually realize that I am a pilot. He may guess that I am—but I would rather that he not 'know' in a firm sense."

For once, Zoe could not connect with Lady's logic. "Why would you want that?" she asked.

Lady considered her words of her answer for a moment before, "when the Captain and I were privately discussing my staying aboard after the incident with the Independents (Zoe noted with an internal smile that Lady referenced the three boarders rather than the Dining Area thing with Jayne), a comment was made about my being 'the getaway driver'." She left the statement hanging there.

Zoe considered this. Mal had given her a terse appraisal about Lady's 'refusal to look the real Verse in the eye'. Zoe's own opinion, even if she hadn't personally talked to Lady about it, was that Lady was right about not getting herself in too deep with the less-than-legal activities of _Serenity_ until more or all of her memory came back. If her 'handlers' from the Alliance or the corporations or whoever it was that was responsible for her ever managed to catch up to Lady, it could be a case of 'the less complicated the better'.

Still, even though Lady did not wish to give Mal anything that could be used as 'ammunition' against her, such as the firm knowledge that Lady was a pilot, a fact that might cause the Captain at some critical moment to try and wedge Lady into doing something the woman should probably not do, the otherwise essentially fact of the moment was that Lady was going behind the Captain back and Zoe's husband was helping her along—

It made Zoe realize even more than ever that Lady _had_ to be _someone's_ ex-military as what Lady was doing was a typical 'non-com-going-behind-the-officers-back-to-get-something-done-for-the-good-of-the-outfit' type of thinking.

"So what kind of memories have you had about piloting?"

Zoe knew that the question came at Lady from out of nowhere. It had become Zoe's own personal method of trying to get Lady to 'flash'. But in this case there was more. It allowed Zoe to 'divert' the conversation away from the subject they had been on, conveniently 'forgetting' that she should have been telling Lady that she had to get permission from Mal to become familiar with the flight control systems—

Lady's eyes narrowed but did not 'flash'. There was also a slight 'nod' of thanks toward the First Mate for burying any more questions about her 'usurping the chain of command' behind the Captain's back.

"Apparently," Lady said to Zoe in answer to the change of subject, "I had experience in a whole selection of ships from yachts to one memory of some kind of huge bulk freighter. In between (she shrugged)—" she looked down at the deck as her mind's eye searched even as she said in a 'tired' tone, "Kaylee took me into your Cortex. We found a roster of ship types, both military and commercial going back several decades." Her head came back up with tired tone turning into a 'sigh' before she said, "of course nothing I saw within those records triggered _any_ memories as being familiar to me."

Her eyes/tone went a little sharper; Zoe could only call it a 'professional' look by someone who knew what they were talking about when Lady said, "in fact I found the design and specifications of your Alliance cruisers to be completely bizarre—overgrown, unwieldy, under-armed monstrosities with little value outside of outright intimidation due to their size and appearance." Lady's eyes now narrowed as she worked at the memories, "although, even as I say that, I have impressions of serving on military vessels substantially larger than your cruisers—but they were big rectangular boxlike affairs—with rows of offensive weapons." She smiled grimly as she added, "something tells me that your Alliance cruisers wouldn't stand a chance in a one-on-one confrontation with a cruiser from my Galaxy."

Zoe . . . shifted uncomfortably. The change of subject had backfired on her. It brought up the whole 'Lady being from someplace else' thing and she just was _not_ comfortable with that. Despite all of Zoe's thoughts about Lady 'being from _someone's_ military'—she still deep inside couldn't adjust to the concept of a place other than The Verse.

Wash saw the discomfort in her and as he had realized that his wife did not intend to disembowel him over being too close with Lady he considered if he should confess to his wife about his 'dirty little secret'.

Wash could hardly admit it to himself just how . . . excited he got as more and more 'little bits' came out of Lady about 'her galaxy' for as far as he could put it together, it really did seem to be something of a size that dwarfed The Verse. Like The Verse, it apparently have several 'regions' but on a scale much more vast than just The Core, The Boarder and The Rim.

There was 'The Outlands', the edges of known civilization; 'untamed frontier' with no law and less morals. 'Wild Space', pockets between the boarders of various 'civilized areas' where the authority of civilization had yet to come—areas where respectable passenger and cargo ships would pass and pirates would prey on them. 'Corporate Space'; regions with giant companies in control, their populations and resources ruthlessly exploited for the profit of the corporation (a 'ruthlessness' that seemed to make The Verses own Blue Sun and its brother companies almost benign in comparison).

Considering how 'unbelievably huge' it sounded, Wash just _had_ to believe that some kind of Faster-than-Light travel was involved. Unfortunately, nothing of any clarity regarding this had as of yet come to Lady's memory.

But the thing that was the most interesting to Wash, was while Lady did have bits of memory about an 'Alliance' in her galaxy, it apparently wasn't the all-encompassing government of the Verse. In fact, it seemed to be the oldest, most settled part of her galaxy but comparatively small compared to the rest of what she was describing. There was also something else about it—and here Wash was more than a little . . . excited.

Hoban Washburne considered himself the single and sole true 'spaceman' on board _Serenity_. In Wash's opinion, the others on board including his wife were merely 'passengers making their way through The Black' without any thought or real appreciation for just what The Black was.

Wash acknowledged that Mal—when talking about 'his sky'—had at least a concept of the true reality. But Wash also thought that Mal's 'sky' was a narrow interpretation, tailored to the ex-Browncoat's need for 'space' (as in a place to get lost in) rather than "Space' (with its mysteries and fascinations). To all the others, The Black was a medium that they moved through to get from Point A to Point B. To them, it was simply a well traveled and familiar lake rather than a vast unexplored ocean.

When asked what was it that made him become a 'spacecraft pilot', he standard reply was that due to the pollution of his home planet, that he never saw the stars growing up. What he didn't say—what he never would say—was just why 'seeing' the stars was so important to him.

He—believed.

Growing up—even outside of The Core, The Cortex had given him access to books and records and even blogs of like-minded people.

The one thing that this 'group' could establish from what records had survived the Great Migration was that at one time, the Science of Mankind had actively been searching for other forms of life within the Milky Way galaxy—a project apparently known as 'SETI'—

Wash _believed_ that somewhere out there, aliens either existed or had existed at sometime during the billions of years that had passed since time had begun. He had believed this since he was a little boy with his first astrometry program that showed how the stars of Earth-that-Was might have looked in the night sky of the home world.

Wash could _not_ believe that the galaxy being described by Lady—it was way to huge to be populated solely by whatever small splinter group of humans who had refused to join the Migration.

Therefore—to Wash—the only other explanation that was possible—

The problem was—he couldn't get Lady to admit it to him.

From a couple of flashes which resulted in sudden changes in whatever it had been that Lady had been describing, Wash had gotten the impression that she was intentionally _not_ telling him something. It was only an impression but—

The truth be told; Wash had spent so much of his life since becoming a commercial pilot in contact with a whole host of various liars, con-artists and otherwise disreputable people that he had more than a good idea when the truth occasionally happened to slip out of someone's lips. But he sensed that Lady was not lying to him, merely withholding information; something he could recognize from both his long period in an Alliance POW camp (where he had spent the majority of the Unification War after his first and only mission for the Browncoat's) to the many and various 'questionings and interrogations' he had undergone since he had become Mal Reynolds pilot via various authority figures running from Local Town Marshalls to Alliance Cruiser Captains.

Which of course meant the fact that Lady was avoiding giving him the answers he wanted wetted Wash's appetite all that much more.

But then—what was he to do if she did answer his questions—what if she told him that 'aliens' existed—or at least evidence had been found within her huge galaxy that other life forms had existed at one time in the past—

It was that fact that had completely killed his passing the little 'bit-by-bits' of Lady's memories that he gleaned from the conversations with her along to Mal or his wife. He suspected that neither one of them; Mal with his possessive ownership of 'his sky' and his wife, the fact that despite her intelligence that this was one thing that she just might not be able to absorb without an adverse reaction, would easily accept or even acknowledge that such a thing was possible.

Wash felt like the kid with the big secret but no one to tell it too.

But even more importantly, he saw the frustration and the disbelief in his wife's face—and he knew as only he could, just how much of his wife's strength was built on her firm beliefs about the world she knew and her place in it.

Wash was torn over what would be best for the woman he loved. There was no doubt in his mind now that Lady was from someplace outside of the Verse, that her Galaxy existed and that everything within it was real. He hadn't quite thought all of it through yet but he had to wonder which would be best for Zoe, shielding her from any further knowledge which she might find uncomfortable or easing her into the ideas that would inevitable confront her.

For unless the Alliance showed up tomorrow to snatch Lady back—and which time they would all probably be dead with nothing left to worry about—Wash couldn't see a way, given how Lady's memories were coming back, that would not present his wife with the undeniable knowledge that there was something else out beyond the dust clouds that hid the rest of the Milky Way. For unless they could prove that Lady was a crazily insane madwoman and that everything within her mind was some enormously detailed fantasy—it was all too real to Lady—which would mean considering just how close Lady and his wife's mental processes complimented each other, that it would be all too real to Zoe—once she forced herself to admit that it was possible.

Even now, with such thoughts running through her head, Wash's eyes could see that his wife was 'squirming at the thought' even if no actual physical sign of such was present. Zoe's ability to show only a calm, cool, competent exterior was always perfect to the outside world. But Wash was her husband—he could see under that exterior—

As could a woman who in many ways was almost a twin to Zoe—

Due to that, Lady abruptly stood up, saying as she did so, "well, I expect that you two would wish a moment together as a part of your shift change."

"I in the meantime," she continued over her shoulder as she stepped over to the Bridge hatch, "intend to attempt cinnamon rolls this morning so I had better get started." She stopped at the hatch with a look back over her shoulder at Wash, "so no pouching in my galley Mr. Washburne. You are being warned that you invade my domain at your peril."

"Yes ma'am," was Wash's reply.

With a nod of respect to Zoe, Lady was through the hatch and gone.

Wash cast an uncomfortable glance at his wife whose gaze still followed the now departed Lady. He started to open him mouth to say something about the ships status in order to get the two of them beyond the awkward feeling—

"You believe her . . . don't you?"

The fact that his wife did not look at him when she said those words only increased their impact into him.

Wash's first inclination would have normally been to vigorously deny it—but the fact that Zoe was _not_ looking at him instantly took that option away from him.

"Yes I do."

Now Zoe turned her eyes to his allowing him to see the gratefulness in them for his honesty and consideration for her.

Zoe then turned to the pilot's seat, taking a breath before asking, "anything I need to know about—"

* * *

Shepherd Book came into the forward passageway from the Dining Area intending to head into the companionway down into the Cargo Bay. However, as he did so, a noise combining both the hard slap of boots on the ladder with the urgent grunts and exclamations of extreme physical exertion came to his ears. He listened for a moment, then poked his head into the companionway having enough time to ask, "do you need any—" before Jayne's voice bellowed, "just stand clear Shepherd—comin through!"

Book hastily backed out of the companionway almost to the entry to the Dining Area as Jayne lurched onto the companionway landing, arms wrapped around a very large and obviously very heavy and awkward 'something equipment like'. Shuffling his feet rapidly, the Merc made it around the corner even though it was plain that his grip was about to slip but the determination fierce that he would get as far as he could before being forced to put the _hun luan de_ thing down—which turned out to be just about as far as in front of Kaylee's cabin. The grating 'smacked' as the case hit the deck.

"_Ren zha!_" Jayne exclaimed as he pulled himself upright, throwing his hands into the small of his back which he sharply arched. The noise from the entire occurrence brought Wash into the Bridge hatch with a less-than-sympathetic, "you didn't drop it did you?"

The look the Merc shot the Pilot could not even closely be called 'kind'. "No, I didn't drop it," was the reply in a little kid voice. He continued in a _very_ annoyed tone, "why didn't you have Belgium's guys carry this up when they brought it on board?"

"Because I wasn't ready for it and didn't want it in the way," was the Pilot's reply. "I'm not totally ready for it now. It's gonna be five minutes before I'm ready."

Jayne's look got harder. "Then you can haul it in yourself. I got things to do."

Now Wash looked annoyed which pissed off Jayne even more. "I carried this _nao can_ thing all the way up from the Cargo Bay," he grated. "Someone else _should_ be able to manage it up this itty-bitty little stairway that leads into your hole."

Wash, clearly uncertain, started to open his mouth—

"I will help with it," Book broke in stepping up next to Jayne.

The Shepherds presence immediately deescalated the situation. Wash looked a little sheepish, managing to bob his head in acknowledgement even as he said, "thanks. Let me finish so that we can get it done." With that the Pilot turned and vanished back into the Bridge.

Jayne looked to Book who met his eyes calmly. The Merc snorted and stepped back from the case. "Whatever." He started to turn back toward the Dining Area—

He stopped looking back past Book, his eyes narrowing in distaste.

Book looked back over his shoulder wonder what it was that Jayne saw—

Lady was standing just feet away from the two of them, that ghost like silent way of movement of hers causing it to appear as if she had sprung out of the deck. Book looked back to Jayne; saw a snarl starting on the man's lips—

But the Merc seemed to have a sudden second thought. He glanced back/down behind him at the case, then back at Lady. Another gruff snort emitted from him before he said in a surly tone, "sorry, didn't mean to be blockin the passage. Let me move this thing outta the way."

With that, he turned, squatted, wrapped his arms around the case—heaved it up into his arms—

Taking three short shuffling steps—grunting as he set the case down—

Setting it down across the front of the access to Lady's cabin.

The Merc again straightened up, slapping his hands in front of him in a 'job well done' way—

"Much better," was all he said. Without another word, he turned and walked past Book, walking past Lady in what could only be called a swagger down to and through the hatch into the Dining Area.

Book closed his eyes for a moment, saying a soft word to himself of tolerance and forgiveness before turning toward—

Lady was standing directly next to him, looking at the case blocking her cabin without a trace of emotion on her face.

Book graced her with a brief explanation as to the presence and contents of the case. With the explanation, Lady's features softened—she even allowed herself a soft sigh.

"I pray for him," Book told her in an equally soft tone. "Every night hoping—"

"It's okay Shepherd," Lady told him quietly, her tone resigned.

"Okay," came Wash's voice as he appeared in the Bridge hatch. His expression 'quirked' for a moment as he noticed Lady's presence, Jayne's absence and the moved location of the case. The Pilot put two-and-two together, actually getting 'four' which caused him to say, "we'll get that thing out of your way Lady."

"It's okay," Lady repeated. She looked at the case, then looked at the ladder to the Bridge then to Wash, "you need this thing up there?"

'Yeah," Wash replied moving forward to come down the ladder. "I hope that between Book and I we can do this without hurting ourselves or—" his voice trailed off as the unpleasantness of the task at hand took firm hold in his mind.

"I'll help as well," Lady said giving the thing a distasteful look. "If we put two at one end and the third at the other end, no one should have to strain hard enough to hurt themselves."

Both Book and Wash nodded at the logic of this. Book grasped one side, giving it a testing tug. "Which is the heaver end?" he asked.

"Ah," Wash breathed as the reality struck him. He waved a disgusted hand at one end of the thing, "the narrow end of course. The big wide end which would be easy for two of us to grab is actually mostly empty space."

"Well—" all Book could do with that fact is shrug at it. "Let's just consider it all another of life's little tests—"

The Shepherds tone kind of petered out—

Lady was decidedly _not_ looking at Wash or Book but—

She had squatted down and grabbed onto the narrow (heavy) end without giving either man so much as a glance—as if she was perfectly certain that she was going to lift that end by herself for which she was already starting to concentrate on the task.

Book and Wash . . . just kind of looked at each other for a moment—

And without another word, they bent down and grabbed the wide (light) end.

"1,2,3—"

They all lifted together.

Lady's face was composed—it didn't even look like she was straining.

Together the three of them guided it over to the ladder going up to the Bridge—Lady leading—going up the ladder backwards with sure, firm steps despite half squatting to keep the thing level so the weight didn't go 'downhill' onto Wash and Book—

No strain—

—and the willingness to work as a team.

Once on the Bridge—

"It needs to go into that corner," Wash told the group. "We'll have to change how we're carrying it to be able to work it in."

They set the thing down, Lady looking into the corner critically. She looked down at the device, then pointed into the corner, "these connections here (she waved one hand at the terminals on the back) get plugged in there?"

"Yeah," Wash nodded.

Before either the Pilot or the Shepherd could move, Lady danced about the unit, spread her arms out wide, grabbing it just as Jayne had—

She lifted it—

It was clear that she was _now straining_. Her voice—

"Guide me in Wash!"

The Pilot was frozen in shock for a moment before, "this way—"


	24. Moments

Chapter Twenty Four – Moments

* * *

Inara adjusted the attitude of her reentry into the atmosphere of Shinbone, the second moon of the planet Paquin which was the second planet circling the gas giant Heinlein in the _Zhu Que_ system. She had spent the last ten days with various clients on Paquin as well as some of the other moons so she was anticipating her return to _Serenity_. They'd been in the _Zhu Que_ system five weeks now and other than the adventure with the device planted by Belgium's rogue workman on their journey to this sector, things had been uneventful.

Inara didn't think that it would remain that way for long. If she knew Malcolm Reynolds, she knew that he had to be getting antsy by now. The man absolutely detested staying in one place too long. To a certain extent Inara could identify with those feelings, it was the reason why she was a traveling Companion rather than one who remained on a certain world with a fixed clientele.

The fact that Mal's luck had finally run out meaning that _Serenity_ hadn't had any work in the three weeks since they had finished the multi-destination delivery job was another reason why she expected them to move on shortly. The reason why Mal had elected to put down on Shinbone was the lack of any landing fees for there was little else to recommend the place. What did recommend the place meant that probably when Mal did find a job, it would be something illegal.

She hit some turbulence, adjusting her angle to compensate.

It made her think of other . . . turbulence.

Her and Mal—

Lady and Jayne.

After the incident with Lady, Mal and her never spoke privately to each other where someone else could see or hear them. Also the words they spoke had moved into a veiled realm, their true meanings hidden, sometimes even from each other. Theirs was a dance. One that neither one of them wanted to play but one where the music hadn't yet stopped.

As for the other one—

Lady was just as calm and cool as she had been. Jayne on the other hand, especially after being shown up by Lady during Kaylee's rescue from the service crawlway had turned especially nasty. He never did it when Mal or Zoe was around and reserved his worst when he thought it was just Lady and himself . . . or so it seemed. But unlike Mal or herself, Inara knew that Jayne did not carefully check to make sure that no one would interrupt or walk in when he was berating Lady. The fact that both Kaylee and Inara herself had severely chastised him when they had caught him at it only seemed to make him madder. It made Inara wonder if Jayne actually did it that way on purpose; so that other could see him heaping abuse on Lady in front of other members of the ships 'family', while being able to deny he was in fact doing so.

Inara felt the buffering of the atmosphere, backing off on the thrusters to bring her speed down. It would be just a couple of more minutes before she was back.

Making her wonder once again, just how much longer would it be before she left?

* * *

Mal and Zoe didn't make dinner. Lady looked a little perturbed until Wash told her that it probably meant that Mal had gotten a lead on a job and was chasing it down, probably over drinks somewhere with Zoe watching his back.

"Of course," Wash went on in kind of a singsong voice, "maybe things went sideways and there was a shootout and they were captured or a fight and they taken away by the local marshal or any number of really colorful adventures that our glorious Captain has a knack of getting into."

"Now, he's not that bad," Kaylee said, speaking up in Mal's defense. Wash, Inara, Simon, River and Jayne all glared at her. She gave out a grimace and a grunt before adding, "well, maybe he is that bad . . . (glare) but he's got Zoe with him and bad things don't happen to her . . . (GLARE) as much."

Lady set the final bowl of fixings down onto the table before she settled herself into her own end seat. As she started to dish her own meal she asked in an offhand way, "and how long does this lot generally wait before it is decided to take a look around for any lost souls?"

"That's fer me to decide," Jayne said in a tone that could only be described as 'boastful'. "It takes careful consideration and knowin how to deal with some of the rough hombre's we have in these parts." Jayne looked at Lady with a smile on his face but a hard, tough look in his eyes. "Things like that ain't fer beginners ya know."

Lady's face didn't move a muscle as she continued to work at filling her own plate.

"Sometimes the hardest decision," Jayne went on between shoving mouthfuls of Lady's food into his mouth, "is to sit back and wait. Some people who like to charge in and . . . well . . . charge in and take charge . . . might not be able to understand such a thing."

Wash gave Jayne an unkind look under his lowered brows before turning to Lady to add, "depends on the situation really. If they're not back by morning of course—"

"Or," Kaylee spoke up, "someone comes out and takes us over just like Badger did once."

That put a look on Lady's face. Kaylee knew that the older woman would be asking her about that one at some point because Lady had been getting more and more curious about things like—

Then Lady's head snapped up, looking toward the forward hatch. Like so much else, her hearing seemed to be more so than most people. Outside of the range of that same hearing, Jayne had been muttering that it was the dog in Lady coming out.

Her reaction enabled everyone at the table to look over in time to see Zoe and Mal coming into the forward passageway from the companionway to the Cargo Deck. A collective sigh seemed to go through the room as the Captain and First Mate came down the steps, Zoe calling out, "sorry we're late."

"Yes," Wash responded. "We were just discussing your imminent demise at the hands of persons unknown and who was going to get your part of tonight's desert."

Zoe had now reached her husband, giving him a quick 'smooch' before sliding into the chair beside him saying, "and you would be eternally haunted from the grave for I intend to make sure that I could take all of Lady's deserts with me."

"For that you would indeed be eternally blessed," Book told Zoe while smiling at Lady who gave the Shepherd a small smile of thanks.

"Such a thing," River said with great gravity, "is impossible in the physical, metaphysical, interdimensional, quasispacial sense and the quantitative research results expressing reality—" She then looked over at Lady, "so if Wash gets Zoe's piece can I have the Captain's piece?"

Jayne was looking over at Mal as he settled into his chair at the head of the table. "Did you close a deal?"

Mal was placing food onto his plate. "Yeah, the cargo will be over in the morning." He looked over to Wash. "We'll be heading back to _Qing Long_ (that brought several heads up sharply) so make sure we have enough gas to get there by an indirect route."

Jayne waited a moment before, "you sure that's a good idea?"

Mal shrugged. "Been almost seven months. Fed's couldn't afford to keep that kind of presence there long." He took in a mouthful before adding, "'sides, the pay on this one is too good to let by."

"Is it something we need to be aware of?" Wash asked warily.

"Don't know, don't care," Mal replied. "It'll be in a sealed carrier. All we gotta do is deliver it."

Several of those at the table kind of looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Wash looked to his wife beside him, asking, "and you're okay with this?"

Zoe gave her husband a look as if she couldn't believe the Captain was being doubted. "Yes, I'm okay with it. The person involved has a reputation for being up front and having integrity."

That seemed to settle everyone down. Wash looked properly chastised and simply mouthed, 'okay' as he turned back to his food.

Lady kind of kept an eye on the entire group during the rest of the meal. As the outsider, she noted . . . a certain tension that rose as the minutes passed. She firmly set her jaw and waited for the dynamic (how did she know that term) to reach its peak.

They were well into Lady's desert when Wash finally broke. He threw up his hands and exclaimed, "okay, okay, I can't take it anymore. Will one of you _please_ drop the other shoe?"

Both Captain and First Mate looked shocked at the outburst.

"Well, I never—" Zoe almost snapped, looking first at her husband than at her Captain. "Can you believe—"

"I am shocked Mr. Washburne," Mal proclaimed sadly. "I mean, at time's I might, _might_, understand you having—" he paused, one hand flailing about, seemingly searching for—

"Lady, I need a fancy word—"

"Misgivings, uncertainties, reservations."

"All of those," Mal went on. He then stuffed some more desert into his mouth. "But the fact that your wife believes that there is no problem with our cargo should be more than enough to settle any fears that you all might have."

Inara was giving Mal a piercing glare. "You _do_ know what the cargo is. You're just not telling us."

Mal placed his open hand over his heart, "the responsibilities of a Captain."

"Must be somethin he's embarrassed about," Jayne said knowingly. "Somethin not manly. Somethin like women's undies or baby beds."

Mal gave Jayne a hard look. "Whatever the cargo is, it is supposed to be the personal property of a very important rancher. Therefore the agent who hired us for transport was under no obligation to provide us with information as to the contents of the sealed container. And while there might have been rumor and speculation on the part of that agent—"

Kaylee nodded her head in agreement. "Yep, he's definitely embarrassed by it."

"Black fishnets," River said with great gravity. "Size extra/extra large."

* * *

The alarm went off with both sound and light, causing a flailing arm to start swinging at it moments later. After the fourth swipe, the 'off' button was hit and quiet returned. Blurry eyed, Wash pulled himself up and out of the warm bed containing his wife. Several body parts of varying intimacy were scratched with an accompanying canyon-like yawn before the Pilot forcibly heaved himself up and out into his feet.

A few minutes later, the ladder to the Washburne's cabin hinged open and Mr. Washburne himself, now dressed, moved up it. Reaching the deck of the forward passageway, he eased the ladder closed, yawned again, scratched a lower-rear anatomy part again and started to kind of shuffle toward the Bridge.

Reaching the Bridge, he, with half open eyes, slid into his chair, tried to force his eyes to open all the way, yawned again, and then reached out to flick a switch, looking to the panel of system display lights on the overhead above the ladder going down into the avionics bay—

"_Yi!"_ he exclaimed in startled surprise as he bounced in his chair, one hand going over his heart.

Lady was sitting on the front of the co-pilot console facing the viewports. In the dim light, the look on her face was both bemused and sheepish. "Sorry," she said in a soft voice. "But I really wasn't expecting company this time of the morning."

"Holy Mother of—" Wash managed as he forced himself to start breathing again. He took a couple of deep breaths before casting an accusing look at Lady, adding, "you must be an assassin. Only woman I know who can kill just by sitting in front of a control console."

The slight smile on Lady's face grew a little bigger. "Must not be very good at it then," she told him. "You're still alive."

"Only because of my clean living and pious ways," Wash retorted as he settled himself back into his chair and managed to reach out and activate the originally intended switch. "You know, from now on I'm going to have to assume that you're here regardless of how God-awful the hour is. What are you doing here anyway if you don't have to really kill me if you answer that?"

Lady looked back to the front viewports and the stars beyond. "Couldn't sleep."

As he started what he had come up to the Bridge to do, Wash kept a half eye on the woman across the compartment asking, "is it something you need to see Simon about?"

It took a couple of beats but finally Lady shook her head. "No, they're just dreams. I know and understand that . . . but at times they're maddingly vague which is so frustrating."

"Dreams?" Wash wondered. "Dreams about . . . your past?"

Lady nodded. "Sometimes they're just impressions, other times they are incredibly clear. And at least for the first time some of them aren't nightmares—all of which I _know_ are real. But with no references as to what it is I'm seeing, I have no idea where what I see in these new dreams fit into the puzzle of who I am. Also, I'm not sure that I can trust them. As I said, I _know_ my nightmares are actual events from my life—buggered up events but still events—so are the dreams that _aren't_ nightmares actual memories trying to surface or are they the half fantasies and surreal situations that most normal dreams are?"

Wash could only shrug. "I have to agree with you there. I know that most of my dreams have no basis in reality." He shrugged again and added, "at least the ones involving space aliens and girls in leather and spandex body suits—" a look came into his eyes . . . after a moment those eyes flicked up to look at Lady even as he said in an almost pleading tone, "you didn't hear me say—"

"I have memory lapses remember," Lady told him easily. "So you may be assured that I would never 'remember' such a thing to your wife."

Wash looked more embarrassed than relieved.

Lady looked at him, "why are you up? I didn't hear what sounded like an alarm or anything."

Wash looked back to his panel, happy that the change would allow his embarrassment to fade. "Course correction. We're at the aphelion so we have to readjust to come back into the plane of the system." He looked at Lady, not sure how much she would understand. "We swing out wide to avoid normal Fed patrols . . . not that there are many of those this far out. But what there is normally hangs around the 'legal' traffic routes. Being out this far also allows us to cruise without a bridge watch because the chances of us encountering something or someone else is really, really small."

Lady wasn't looking at him so he couldn't see her eyes (not that he could anyway given the distance and the dimness), but her voice sounded far away as she murmured, "hiding in the halo."

Wash raised an eyebrow. The term made instant sense to him even if he hadn't heard it before. The 'halo' was the area around any star or planet were satellites, moons, debris, comets (really _big_ debris) and other such celestial stuff floated around. And because of all that volume and all that same 'stuff' it was a really good area to hide in. The Alliance didn't bother to patrol it, the reason apparently being that any 'bad' guy would have to come back into the system anyway so they saved on consumables and maintenance on their ships by not doing so.

The disadvantage was that it was also really easy to get lost . . . especially if you had some kind of breakdown as _Serenity_ had once had. But it was the price that one had to pay if one was involved in less-than-legal activities.

"Sounds like you know something of it," he ventured to Lady.

Lady's voice was still 'far away'. She was obviously having a rather substantial 'flash'. "I've both hidden and hunted in the Halo."

Wash was immediately interested. This was something new which they had not touched on before although Lady had mentioned pirates several times as well as other apparently unsavory types who made their homes in The Outlands. "What were you hunting?" he had to ask.

"Pirates, Slavers, Raiders—"

That caused Wash to furrow his brow. Piracy they had already discussed. Lady's Galaxy had them, The Verse did not. It was one of the things that the Alliance did not tolerate and one of the few things that Independents and the Alliance agreed upon. It was a general fact that if anything other than a lone wolf appeared (or the occasional 'salvage' operation like the kind Saffron had almost snared them into), if any kind of an organized piracy operation came into being, Independents would forward the information to the Alliance quicker that a scalded cat—if they didn't take care of the problem themselves.

There were a fair number of slavers in The Verse. But their ships looked and acted no different than anyone else's. How would you hunt them? Raiders? Did Lady mean something like Reavers when she said that?

"Well," Lady's voice had 'come back' even as she pushed herself away from the co-pilots console, "I'm keeping you from your work." She slid gracefully between the console and the handrails for the ladder down into avionics, starting to move by Wash heading for the Bridge hatch.

"Are you going to be able to sleep?" Wash asked.

Lady stopped for a moment, giving the Pilot a shrug. "This started a couple of nights ago. I'm sure that the problem existed at various times in my life before—" her voice kind of trailed off at that point—it looked as if something was 'tugging' at her awareness without blossoming into a full blown flash. In fact it looked to Wash as if she was trying to resist it turning into a flash. "I'm—I'm not sure," she told him in a distracted way, "just how I dealt with it before."

She put a hand on her forehead as if she had a sudden headache. "Something—it's like whatever it was—was unpleasant—like I don't want to remember it."

Wash shrugged. "There's always booze."

Lady looked at him—with a face filled with shock! "What—?"

Her reaction went unseen by the Pilot who was looking intently at his instruments. "You know, booze, alcohol, hard liquor; as in drink until you pass out. Done it once or twice myself. I wouldn't recommend it on a nightly basis but—"

Wash hardly had time to react as Lady suddenly dropped to her knees as if hit in the back of the head with a lead pipe. Somehow he managed not to shout (as there was no one about to shout at) but in moments he was next to her, wondering what he should do—

Lady was all the way down on her knees, completely bent over, curled up into a tight fetal ball with her forehead on the deck in front of her knees, her arms gathered into her chest. Wash was on his knees next to her, hands out in front of him but fearful of touching her. "What is it?" was all he could manage.

She said nothing. But Wash—without even touching her, he could see how she was trembling.

"Goddamnit—"

Wash's eyes went a little wider. Lady had said the word very softly but the only time he'd ever her tone like that was when she was pealing Jayne's skin off in the Dining Area.

"Goddamnit!"

This was louder—and the fact that Lady's hands came out away from her body and 'smacked' the deck with clenched fists—it made Wash jump.

"GodDAMNit!" Lady reared up fully onto her knees. All her hair had fallen forward when she was down—it was now draped all over her face/front but Wash could see her eyes through all that hair.

Fury!

He backed away, seeking the safety of his chair.

She stayed like that for almost a minute.

Then—she relaxed—slowing coming down until she was sitting seiza.

Her hands/arm moved (Wash jumped) upward—she pulled/pushed all her hair away from her face/back over her shoulders—

There were tears streaming down her face.

"It's not your fault Wash."

With those words, Lady climbed to her feet. She almost 'stomped' off of the bridge . . . which considering her usual liquid-smooth silent movement—

Wash didn't know if his life should have flashed before his eyes or not. He made up his mind then and there to never mention alcohol to the woman again. He suddenly remembered the confusion and uncertainty that had been on Lady's face when Mal had tried to get her booze in the bar before the big fight—

While at the same time, wondering just what could have occurred in her life to cause such a reaction.

Wash pondered a moment. Considering some of the damage and destruction he had seen in so many places caused by alcohol . . . maybe he didn't have to wonder so hard.

* * *

"Lady, I'm sorry."

Both Zoe and Book looked at each other in surprise. Lady had been in a strange mood—moody—almost depressed being the best way to describe it, all morning. Jayne had made some snide comments about her 'period'; everyone else had left it alone.

Zoe had noticed that her husband had been . . . quiet . . . very quiet all morning. She had thought it was just because he had had to get up in the middle of the night; she knew that he had apparently had a very hard time going back to sleep.

It was midday. Book was at the Dining Area table reading, she was at the other end halfway through cleaning her Mare's Leg. She looked up and smiled when her husband walked in from the direction of the Bridge but he didn't seem to see her. He had walked directly over to in front of the grill, faced Lady who was behind it and uttered his out-of-the-blue statement.

Lady seemed to close her eyes in pain—which made the Shepherd's and First Mates eyes go even wider.

Then Lady seemed to take in a long deep breath before looking up with tight, drawn face—clearly trying to smile and failing.

"I said that it wasn't your fault Wash, I mean that."

Wash . . . after a long moment shook his head. "That's fine for something little—what happened was not little." Then he looked over as if he could feel Zoe's eyes burning into him with ten thousand questions. He started to open his mouth to say something—

"Through no fault of his own," Lady said beating him to it, looking directly at Zoe in explanation, "Wash triggered an exceptionally unhappy 'flash' last night."

Wash again shook his head. "What happened wasn't just 'unhappy' Lady—"

Lady was still looking at Zoe seeing the questions in the First Mates eyes.

"I couldn't sleep," Lady said, again having to explain, "and I was looking at the stars when he (nodding at Zoe's husband) came in to do the course correction."

Zoe took this in with a nod of her own. Her husband had caused a flash which had upset Lady and he had obviously felt guilty about it, that being why he hadn't been able to sleep afterwards.

"One cannot expect," Book said softly, coming into the conversation as much to get past the uncomfortable moment, "that all memories that return will be good ones."

"I don't Shepherd," Lady replied. "But this one was . . . difficult for a specific reason." She looked at Wash, her face remorseful. "But what he said was correct Wash. You didn't do it with any malice; you _couldn't_ have any way of knowing that I would react so."

Zoe hesitated a moment. She wanted to ask Lady if she could explain what the 'flash' was but reflecting on it, she decided against it. It might make her husband more uncomfortable and 'guilty' than he already was.

She didn't have too—

"I'm glad you came in Wash," Lady said quietly as she put down her work and leaned into her arms with her hands flat on the work counter. Wash looked down at those hands only to have a minor shock run through him—

The tips of all of Lady's fingers had . . . band aids on them. Wash blinked—perplexed—wondering if what had happened to Lady's fingers had anything to do with—

Lady looked up at Wash, sweeping her gaze around to take in Zoe's and the Shepherds eyes as well. "I don't think," she said in a sorrowful tone, "I should keep this fact in—but at the same time, I also think that it's something that only the three of you should know." She looked at Wash, "you deserve an explanation—"she held up her hand to Wash as he started to protest which stopped the words in his throat. She then looked between Zoe and the Shepherd—

"You two should know—should something happen sometime later—"

First Mate and Shepherd absorbed this for a moment before gravely nodding.

Lady took a deep breath—

"Simply put—I realized that for much of my life I was—and still am—an alcoholic."

Those in the room took this in for a moment. Lady then went on.

"Much is still unclear. But what I do know is that I suffer from insomnia—possibly brought on by subconscious fear of—the pretty substantial nightmares that I'm also having."

Zoe, Wash and Book took this in grimly, Book slowly nodding his head as if he understood.

"Apparently long ago, I turned to alcohol to fight both of those demons; the insomnia and the nightmares which apparently I've battled for a good portion of my adult life—as well as other . . . things in my life that were . . . unpleasant. Needless to say, the alcohol in turn took over large portions of that same life."

Shepherd Book waited for a moment before _telling_ Lady, "I would venture to say after all we have done together in the last several months that you are a _recovering_ alcoholic—for which you should have much praise."

"Whom apparently can and has fallen off the wagon more than once," Lady said, now managing a grim smile. That smile then went away. She looked down, Zoe taking in a sharp breath as she did so for the look on Lady's face was almost _haunted_. "Last night—after what happened—it was hard—very hard—not to go searching for—." She looked up, "I've been fighting this craving for weeks without understanding what it was that I was craving. Without understanding _why_ I was craving it." She took a shuddering breath. "_Now_ I know why I was fighting so hard _not_ to remember it. It's because a part of my subconscious—well—let's just say that there is something within me that tries to . . . protect me at times like that." She shook her head tiredly. "I was trying really so hard not to remember . . . but in the end I guess that was unrealistic."

Lady swallowed hard, as if . . . frightened. "I can't tell you how much alcohol held me in its power for years. I'm—" she again took in both Book and Zoe with her eyes, "that's why I wanted the two of you to know—just in case—." Her eyes then went inward. "Some of the things in my nightmares—they've become much clearer, more understandable with this revelation—that maybe there actually was a reason for why I felt the way I did."

Zoe's voice was very quiet, "some of those 'other' demons—meaning the ones other than the insomnia and the nightmares, what you've said, what you've stressed so many times about all the years of bleak loneliness and depression you experienced . . . that's how you dealt with those times as well—with alcohol." Zoe shook her head remembering so many in both the pre-war army and the Browncoats who found refuge from stress and loneliness in the bottle, often ending up a shell of themselves."

"As well as escaping the pain," Lady added, her tone mirroring that pain.

"Mental pain," Book clarified. "Brought on by the weights and responsibilities of whatever positions of authority you held." Both Zoe and Wash looked at him with barely concealed surprise. The tone of the Shepherds words conveyed that he spoke from personal experience.

Wash's head suddenly looked back over to Lady as if a he had just put her previous words into something that made sense to him—

"That's what you meant. There were times when the only way you could sleep—"

"Not 'times'" was Lady's grim correction. "But literally for weeks on end, the only way I could sleep was by finishing a bottle or two of some really rotten rotgut," Lady affirmed with a smile that was again as grim as the tone—which turned into a grim grin of a type that could only be described as 'gallows humor', "unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the reality was that it actually took five or six bottles to have the desired effect." She shook her head sadly as she added, "it appears as if my . . . unusual body and metabolism built up an abnormally high tolerance over time."

Silence then fell on the small group. Horror filled Wash's face remembering the exact words he had said to her that morning.

"Wash," Lady said again. "You were . . . in an offhand way trying to help." The grim smile was back. "Even you said that it shouldn't be done night after night. That's my own failure. It has nothing to do with you and you are not responsible for it. Again— it's not your fault."

After a moment, Wash dropped his head and reluctantly nodded his understanding.

The silence came back. It lasted for maybe a minute before Zoe stirred, saying simply as she nodded to Lady, "we understand—and thank you for your trust."

Lady snorted. "The lot of you have put your trust in me in more ways than one." With that, Lady went back to her work, leaving a decidedly uncomfortable Wash still standing in front of the counter.

Book smiled and took the appearance of returning to reading. Wash looked over at him wife who gave him a 'get over here' motion of her head. It took a moment to register to the Pilot but he almost 'jerked' himself away from the counter, moving over to Zoe.

As Wash slid up next to her, she reached over and rubbed her fist into the small of his back. She looked up at him and in an attempt to divert him from what had just happened, she asked, "so, has the Master of our Ship told you—"

"AAaarrrgghh!"

There was a loud clatter as several things on the counter in front of Lady dropped onto the floor. She jerked back one hand clutching it the other as she went down to one knee, leaning back into the galley—

Book was already up and moving as was Zoe, Wash was kind of frozen in place for a moment by the suddenness of it—

The first thing Zoe saw was the blood on the deck—"get Simon," she ordered her husband.

Book was already on his knees in front of Lady, a towel in his hands. She had somehow managed to drive the tip of the knife she had been using deep into the palm of her other hand. Zoe realized that it had in fact gone all the way through her hand (the knife had fallen out when she had jerked back, it was one of the things that had clattered to the floor) leaving both side bleeding profusely. In moments Book had folded the towel up and was applying direct pressure.

Zoe looked at Lady. The First Mate was startled to see—

Lady at the moment appeared to be oblivious to her injury as she was having some kind of incredibly major flash.

Despite it all, Zoe couldn't help but ask, "what happened Lady, what do you see?"

"The Ships Master, he's the Ships Master—"

Lady and Book looked at each other for a moment. In confusion, Book looked back at Lady, "are you talking about Captain Reynolds?"

"My husband is the Ships Master."

Minutes later, Lady was inside of the Infirmary. Simon couldn't use any painkiller, but being that the actual act of weaving the incision didn't involved any kind of drug or narcotic he figured that getting it closed along with Lady's hyperactive healing ability was the fastest way for her to get past the pain.

Mal, Inara, and Kaylee had joined Wash, Zoe and Book waiting outside.

"It was like when she remembered she could cook," Book was saying, "only even more so despite the pain."

Wash almost opened his mouth to tell them about how it appeared to be as intense as Lady's flash about alcohol—instantly biting his tongue due to the fact that Lady didn't want that information broadcast about. He saw his wife looking at him, giving him a firm nod of agreement.

"Well," Inara said, "if it was about her husband, that would be a huge memory to come back to her."

Kaylee looked to Mal and Wash, "is there such a thing as a Master of the Ship?"

Wash shrugged. "By Spacetime Law, it's synonymous with Captain of any merchant vessel."

Kaylee nodded, "then . . . her husband is a Captain of some ship—" Kaylee thought for a moment before, "maybe he's the Captain of that black arrowhead ship she's talked about."

Book was shaking his head. "I don't think so." That got his a look for everyone. "There was something more there than just a different word for a common term." He gave just a little nod of his head as he added, "and it should be noted that what she said was not 'Master of the/a Ship'—it was definitely 'Ships Master." Another small nod before—"and there was most definitely a . . . reverence to both the words and the way she said them."

After a moment, Zoe nodded her agreement, "yes, there was an obvious difference to the way she said 'Master' compared to anytime she's said 'Captain'."

Mal gave his First Mate a look that appeared to be both 'hurt' and 'mildly insulted'.

"If I had to guess," the Shepherd went on, "reading as I have, books both historical and of fictional history about the far past of Earth-that-Was, there was a time known as the 'Age of Sail'. There was a . . . 'Sailing Master' on many of those ships. It was an early term for what eventually became the navigator although he was also responsible for _how_ the ship was sailed—the handling of the rigging and the placement and number of the sails to be used and such in addition to the location that the ship was—but somehow I don't think that's it either."

"Then what?" Mal asked, thinking that Book was reading too much into the whole thing.

The Shepherd tapped his index finger against his lips several times before, "what I think it might be . . . there was a term . . . Ship's Master . . . on the Military side it was known as 'Master and Commander', an officer who commanded a ship; wasn't of the 'rank of Captain' and was operating independently, not under the direct command of an Admiral."

Book pondered it another minute before venturing, "On the civilian side . . . I do believe that . . . if I remember correctly, the Ships Master was a personage who gave direction to the Ship's Captain as to where to go . . . what ports to go to in order to conduct trade and such. He was like an Admiral giving the Captain a 'mission' even though he was outside of the actual chain of command. He may have been the direct representative of the company which was contracting the ship or—" the Shepherds face creased as another thought occurred to him—

"He could also actually _be_ the ship's owner, the Master of the Captain and the crew who personally accompanied the ship on its trips in order for him to negotiate the trade deals on the spot—"

Kaylee kind of shrugged. "So . . . maybe he owns the black arrowhead."

At that moment, Simon walked out of the Infirmary. He looked at them for a moment before shrugging. "Something took quite a bit out of her. She fell asleep as I was weaving it." He glanced back into the Infirmary before adding, "She's extremely lucky. Somehow she managed to miss all the tendons." He slid the doors partially closed explaining, "I'll just leave her there. Something was bothering her this morning. Maybe this will help her get over it."

Everyone kind of nodded and started to drift away. Finally it was just Wash and Kaylee standing there . . . Kaylee looked a little sad and lost for she was wondering, _I wonder if we'll ever know what it was that she was thinking?_

Wash waited a moment before looking at Simon, "Doc, is there something else wrong with her?"

Kaylee looked up startled, instantly concerned. "What—?" she asked.

Simon also looked questioningly at the Pilot.

Wash shrugged, "I . . . noticed that it looked like something had happened to the tips of all her fingers."

Kaylee glanced in, eyes widening as she noticed for the first time all the band aids.

Simon gave them both a grim smile. "As I said, something is obviously bothering her. Whatever it is must be kind of deep within her. But hopefully she'll get over it."

Not that that explanation made Wash feel any better. "What does her fingers have to do with that?" he asked.

Simon sighed. "Only that it tells us that deep inside, Lady is as susceptible to personal stress and anxiety as any of us are." Wash just gave the Doctor a look. Simon gave him a look back before, "she must have spent most of last night biting her fingernails Wash; chewing them down to the nubs, a bad habit from childhood that resurfaces in times of extreme stress." The Doctor looked to Kaylee, "I'm telling you this as well because she's working for you on the engines."

Kaylee's eyes went wide/questioning.

"I don't know," Simon said patiently, "if her enhanced systems will fight off infection. If it doesn't, she could have trouble if something starts in her fingers because I _can't_ treat it if it does. So you'll have to make sure if she gets into real dirty work that her hands are protected."

With a very solemn look, Kaylee nodded her head.

Wash could only take a real deep breath, his feeling of guilt only increasing.

* * *

They landed on New Canaan, the second planet of the _Qing Long_ system having made the trip without incident. As the ramp went down, the heat and the dust flowed in. Lady, standing with Mal, Zoe, Jayne and Book, raised her hand against the very bright sunlight and got her first look at one of the largest 'towns' far out in the rawest part of The Rim.

She saw much was the same as many of the planets she had seen in recent weeks. The crowds were perhaps larger and they moved down the broad street running away from the landing pad. Most of them were on foot although there was heavy traffic of something she thought were once called rickshaws. A fair amount were on horseback, a very more few in; she knew now that the type of 'wagon' was called a 'buckboard', while far in the distance, something that looked more 'modern', a car of some kind that was moving out of view.

The main thing to strike her senses was the 'town' itself. The buildings where completely wood, none of them more than two stories high, all of them with fronts elevated above the street with sidewalks (in one of her first towns Lady had remembered a term from somewhere—boardwalk) that ran along into the distance out of sight.

The dust was from all the motion and movement in front of them, was carried to them by a dry breeze that provided no cooling. Lady felt the covered parts of her body already starting to emit sweat as the air from outside rolled into the Cargo Bay. She took a long, hard look at the world before her.

_You've been in spots like this. But they weren't made of wood . . . at least most of them weren't. They were more . . . modern . . . and yet they were the same. Ramshackle setup, nothing planned, each owner or builder having his own way, whichever way was cheapest for them._

Lady's eyes went to those people were nearest at hand. _The more you see, the more you have to acknowledge that the Captain was right. Most of the places we've been too, almost all of the women are wearing long dresses. High collars, long sleeves, hats, and scarves to protect their heads. If they're not in dresses they're in plain, frumpy—I think the word is 'britches'. If I went out in a place like this in that one leather set I picked out, I'd have stuck out like one of Wash's toy dinosaurs._

The wind blew several strands of hair into her face. She brushed them away before running her fingers over her forehead feeling the beads of sweat starting there. The sensation from her fingertips—

She glanced at them with more than a bit of internal disgust. Her fingers/nails had mostly healed but the fact that several memories had returned to her about this particularly bad habit made her wonder how many more bad habits were still lurking inside waiting to pop out at inconvenient times. She knew that several if not everyone on board had noticed what she had done to herself and she had to wonder—

As Shepherd Book started down the ramp, Mal, who was holding the small case containing the 'cargo' turned to Jayne saying, "we'll be back as soon as we find our contact. Once he's finished with shutdown, Wash can make arrangements for refueling at the spot we're gonna shift too. Everyone else can stay put until we're done here. Once we're paid we'll do the shift to a little less central spot to fuel, get supplies and consumables."

Jayne was eyeing something within the town. "Ah Mal, can't we just go in for a quick drink." He waved forward with one hand. "That bars right there. Wouldn't be more than a minute away if there was a problem."

Mal shook his head, the look on his face saying that this was an argument he had already had with the Merc. "You know what we heard. That any place close in around this dock was trouble. If the client hadn't insisted that we land here we wouldn't have."

"But the Shepherd got off. And there ain't no place close to the place you're plannin to shift too."

Mal gave the Merc a look. "The Shepherd has his own business. 'Sides, he can probably get on over to the new spot with no problems." He jerked his head toward the bar that Jayne was looking at. "Go into that place and you might not make it to where the other dock is."

"I can take care of myself," was Jayne's sullen answer.

"We ain't got time for this now," Mal was starting to sound snappy. "We're gonna be late if we don't get goin so just leave it!" He gave everyone else in the group a look before he went on with, "if we get paid in the way I expect, there'll be eyes out there (he nodded toward the buildings) who're gonna see it. I want to get out of here before a bunch decides that our pay would be better off in their hands." Mal gave Jayne a final look, "that's why I want you here for the payment and _that's_ why I want you to be here and keep an eye on things if we don't get back until after the payment was made." With that, Mal gave Lady a nod and then started down the ramp with Zoe.

Lady crossed her arms and moved away from Jayne who stood muttering curses under his breath. Mal had told Lady to get familiar with new surroundings, otherwise stand by with Jayne at the ramp should their contact's workers deliver the payment before Mal and Zoe returned. So she leaned up against the side of the main hatch looking out at the world passing by.

Jayne ultimately stopped cussing and took a similar pose on the opposite side. His face was that of stony silence. Lady kept him in the periphery of her awareness while she expanded it elsewhere.

This was another . . . talent (?) that seemed to be slowly creeping back into her awareness. There was no way that she could have described it to another person but it was also something that felt as if it had been a part of her since she was young. It was like what she experienced when in the Kata's only more so.

It was like and yet unlike her 'all-seeing gaze' (as Inara jokingly called it). Instead of a conscious yet automatic action that she did whenever she entered or encountered something new, this 'talent', while it also seemed to be something that she could turn on and off at will, it also seemed to function in a 'steady' manner rather than the 'scan' of her gaze. She had first become aware of it in the minutes before the big fight in the bar when she and Zoe had been worried about the man she had seen looking at Mal so hard. She remembered how it had turned 'on' when she had taken her place at the table with her back to the crowd—not that she had any idea what the 'switch' was that turned it on.

Even now, Lady could only describe the feeling of that state as being 'watchful and wary'; simply put she seemed to be so aware of everything around her that it almost submerged itself into her being. Everything from the sensation of the sweat running down through various parts of her body to the fact that the woman in the long blue dress who was at that moment passing in front of the ramp had just discovered that one of her sleeve's had a tear in it seemed to come to her as if it was the air she was breathing into her lungs. The talent didn't seem magical or supernatural, it just seemed that she could see, recognize, input, correlate, categorize and assess everything that registered to her senses, senses which seemed to be honed to a very fine degree. Impressions told her that it had literally taken decades to learn and sharpen this technique.

What hadn't come to her was the exact reason why she had learned it. Lady had heard the comments among the crew of her being a spy or an assassin. Given all the things currently 'known' about her, she could understand this speculation on their part. But inside to herself—that didn't 'feel' right.

Inside of her was the certainty that she had been Line Military. There were impressions; some of her non-nightmare dreams, many 'something's', all of which gave her the strong feeling that she had spent time in infantry, shipboard navy, some kind of trans-atmospheric fighter craft—

Given that, she had to admit that he also had those memories of Special Ops work. Something told her that most of the 'honing' of this talent happened during that time but her impressions told her that she had actually learned it much earlier making her believe that while she was certain that she been taught this 'talent' when she was young or at least a teen.

There was something else as well at least as far as being some kind of 'spy' or 'assassin'. That reason was the certainty within her that she could never have been one committed to cloak and dagger stuff due to the rock-hard belief she felt somewhere inside her core. She knew that she more than annoyed the Captain due to what she had told him about her concept of right and wrong and her integrity to stick with that concept. Because of those feelings within her, she just _knew_ that she would never have devoted her life to 'wet work'. She knew—or at least acknowledged the strong impression that some of her Special Ops work probably bordered on wet work; after all she _knew_ that 'intelligence gathering' and 'eliminating with extreme prejudice' were very much parts of Special Ops work, but they would have been 'combat' type operations instead of the 'cloak and dagger' kind.

That being said she also had to more than strongly admit that so much of 'everything' still didn't make sense to her. It was such a jumbled tangle of impressions and feelings. She understood the concerns of those aboard _Serenity_ who had become her friends that she might be something that could turn on them. While she didn't _think_ she was such a danger she had to admit that she couldn't be _sure_!

That was balanced within her by some of the things she was becoming 'sure' about. She was positive that she couldn't be associated with their Alliance or outlaw companies due to the fact that she _knew_ she was from someplace else. She still didn't have any memory of who or why she was brought to The Verse but she had had—dreams of such kinds of things happening to her before.

The biggest question was why had she been brought and were they still looking for her?

The latter question was probably a given so she gave it little thought other than working her new friends for 'intelligence' about their Verse so she would have an idea of what to expect when 'the bad guys' finally showed up. The former question however—

She could only guess—the problem was that it felt kind of egotistic to do so—that it had something to do with who or what she really was. If only she had some kind of idea just what that was? It was obvious that as far as 'The Verse', she apparently was some kind of incredible enigma. Between her body and it's various abilities, all the 'stuff' inside her (as of yet _nothing_ about any of that stuff had come back to her), her abilities as a 'fighter'—

But then, inside of herself, through her dreams and impressions she was being to acknowledge that she was special—

But something else also told her that she was not . . . unique. She had started to have vague feelings; some of those same dreams; the ones she had mentioned to Wash she was starting to think—like the impression that she learned this observation 'talent' in her teens—

She was having dreams and impression of maybe what her life had been growing up; training, discipline, dedication, dreams—dreams not like the kind she was having—but what her dreams as a young person had been. Her dreams for her own future—for what she 'wanted to be when she grew up' type of dream.

She was beginning to believe—not know for it was all still too nebulous—but she felt that she hadn't always been alone. When she had been growing up—when she had been undergoing all the learning and training and drilling—there had been friends there as well, undergoing the same trials and times that she had faced. Some faces had come to her in her dreams. There had been laughter and camaraderie—sleeping out under the stars—locker room girl talk—

There had been something else going on at the same time as this training. Whatever it had been, she hadn't like it. It seemed to parallel the training which she had liked—almost a duality—two separate but simultaneous things. She'd realized that she'd been in conflict even then over her dislike for the second part.

The dreams weren't helping with this. It was starting to become confusing.

But at some point in her life—all of that had changed. There was a feeling that she often had—those feelings were a counterpoint to the other feelings within her. That feeling that she had been; she could only call it 'separated' from whatever it was that she had belonged to in her teen years. A separation that she _knew_ was of her own making.

The best she could make out was that she had separated and segregated herself from various parts of her life on more than one occasion. At this point she could not guess at the causes.

All this mused through her mind as time went by and the heat coming in from the outside made her sweat—all the while she kept working at the 'talent' of her awareness, attempting to explore further how she could push that talent.

She did _not_ realize that at some point she had reached around to grab the long end of her pony tail. What she also didn't realize was that she had been tying a knot in the end of it only to pull the knot loose then retie it . . . over and over again. She didn't know but several of those on board had noticed that this seemed to be an action she did unconsciously whenever her mind was elsewhere—

Finally a wagon with a full contingent of armed men, stopped at the foot of _Serenity's_ ramp. Wash was just coming down the forward ladder, "Mal just radioed, this is our payment." It consisted of two fairly good sized trunks. These were loaded aboard, Jayne carrying one on his own while Wash and Lady shared one between them. The wagon its group of armed men then moved off.

"Fine," Jayne said in a peeved tone. "We got what we're waiting for. I'm gonna go over to that bar and get me something to bring back. I'm out of everything that I had stashed in my cabin and I don't wanna walk far once Mal makes his _bai chi_ shift." He eyed a challenge at both Wash and Lady. "Nothin's gonna happen to me if I just go over an buy a bottle to bring back." When neither of them responded he started down the ramp and across the apron over toward the bar.

"It is truly a wonderful thing to live with such a cultured individual don't you think," Wash said in a 'light' tone. He turned back toward the ladder. "I'm gonna go make the call to arrange refueling. You need anything?"

Lady shook her head to the Pilot's question. As Wash walked away, she thought a moment before giving their 'payment' a glance. She had no idea what kind of 'good pay that someone else might try and take' could possibly be contained in a pair of large trunks, but considering the Captains warning and description of the local conditions, she didn't feel as if she could just walk away from them, leaving them in plain sight in front of the main gangway. So with a sigh, she again crossed her arms and moved back over to the side of the Bay hatch next to the control panel, going back to watching the world outside pass them by.

* * *

Just down the street—

A group of eyes watched the Fighter walk out of the dilapidated cargo ship, down and over to the bar. Those eyes glanced back at the tall female still waiting in the open hatch. Those eyes noted that she appeared to be unarmed (at least she wasn't openly wearing a weapon). Some words and ideas were quickly exchanged then the group started to move.

* * *

A/N: So here we start what will become the climax of Book One. I want to thank everyone who has followed along so far; I hope that you're enjoying the story.

I wanted to say to Arcana O The Fool and ermintrude421; thanks for the reviews but I was unable to send a reply to either of you apparently due to your settings. They were much appreciated.

To everyone reading, thank you very much.

I Remain

Your Humble and Obedient Servant

The Wise Duck


	25. Admission

Chapter Twenty Five – Admission

* * *

Jayne was waiting at the bar for the three bottles he ordered when a group pushed up behind him. As the closest bar to the ship docks at high noon on a work day, it was crowded despite any reputation that Mal might have heard about so Jayne really didn't pay the newcomers any real mind. The Merc also thought (as he normally did) that _Serenity's_ Captain was _way_ to paranoid (probably too many bombs dropped on his head in the war) so Jayne didn't suspect anything until this new group actually moved in _around_ him rather than pushing him to the side for room at the bar. Before he could react to this, he felt a hand reach down and grab his gun. He didn't explode into violent action because at the same moment he felt both the muzzle of a gun go into the small of his back even as the point of a knife tickled the side of his ribs.

"Okay, cowboy," came the voice in his ear, loud enough to cut through all the background noise but reduced enough that no one else would hear it. "We're hot and tired and thirsty. So's it wouldn't take much for us to blow your ass away. We're gonna take a walk."

Jayne felt his gun slip out of its holster. The pressure from the knife forced him sideways. They moved through the bar, around the end of it and into the hallway leading to the privy.

In the hall, the one who had Jayne's gun quickly unloaded it while the one with the knife growled into the Merc's ear. "We've been sittin and watching old man Dyan's wagon all day. He's such a miser that we knew that it had to have somethin really worth somethin ifin he hired all those guards."

The one with Jayne's gun finished his task and shoved it back into the Merc's holster muttering as he did so, "we had to follow that gorram wagon halfway through the whole gorram town. Means whatever the stuff is that we're gonna have to carry it back the same way." He then reached up to roughly pat Jayne on the cheek. "That's pisses me off so's why don't you give me sumptin to take my nastiness out on?"

The one with the knife poked it into Jayne's ribs again to add emphasis. "We're gonna do this real quick and clean. Over to your ship, you show us were you stashed those cases. We're gonna buffalo you so's you don't yell or follow us but we won't do it hard enough ta kill ya."

"Let's go," said the one who'd was guarding everyone's backs.

Jayne went back up the hall and back out into the crowded bar. He gave a glance around, hoping that he might see someone he knew or maybe one of Mal or Zoe's friends or former Browncoats. He didn't know what he could do even if he spotted one. The odds were that they wouldn't recognize him without Mal or Zoe meaning that they wouldn't help even if he started something.

This thought went out of the window when Jayne realized that there were four more waiting at the doors to the bar. They gathered around him as they went outside and stayed in a pack as they went down the steps to the street and across toward the dock.

Jayne's eye had gone right to _Serenity_, hoping that Mal and Zoe had made it back.

He felt his embarrassment rise . . . and with it, his anger. For all he saw in the open hatch of _Serenity_ was the Bitch with Kaylee now by her side. It was going to be bad enough that the _shabi_ saw him taken like this, but Kaylee would be disappointed in him. Maybe—

_That's what I need to do_ the thought and the relief that came with it surging through him. _Once I get up there, all I have to do is get these _piyan_ to start in on the Bitch with their mouths. She won't try to show off with me standin there to watch cause she knows that her moves are nowhere near as good as mine and she won't want ta look foolish in front of me. That way, if we can keep it going, either Mal and Zoe will show and help me out, or these yahoos will go after the Bitch givin me a chance to take em all down._

Jayne saw that Kaylee _saw_ him and the crowd around him. Jayne saw her shuffle close to the Bitch, alerting her for she looked his way.

_Yeah, look at all of this comin at ya,_ he growled to himself, letting the anger and hate that he had toward Lady ride over his own embarrassment to fuel the fighting rage that he would need to take all eight of the raiders out. _What ya gonna do now? You might have been able to fake it when you were facin two or three comin at ya. Let's see what high and mighty tricks you can do with this—_

Jayne's brain kind of squandered to a sudden and confused halt. The Bitch had seen them all coming. She had stood up straight, dropping the hair she had been playing with, taking it all in. Jayne saw the look on her face frown; that look of concentration that he found so annoying—

The Bitch had then reached out with her one hand, taking a frozen Kaylee by the arm, pulling the both of them back into the Cargo Bay at which point—

The Bitch turned to the control panel and punched the button that closed the inner airlock doors.

The posse of outlaws surrounding Jayne broke into yells and screams. Jayne was grabbed roughly by both shoulders and hustled towards the ramp. In moments, the whole crowd was gathered there at the top of the ramp in the airlock space, several of the raiders beating on the closed hatch while—

The one with the knife yelled over them all and then he whipped the knife to the front of Jayne's throat. All the others shut up. Jayne saw two faces scrunched together in the small window in the doors, Kaylee and the Bitch.

The one with the knife yelled, "you'd better open it up or he's dead!" Jayne felt the knife actually touch the skin. Jayne felt his insides go cold as Kaylee's face disappeared from the window. That left only the Bitch who did nothing but look out with an expression that held concentration but no other emotion.

Then she gave just the smallest little smile—before shaking her head 'no'.

The posse of outlaws erupted into shrieks and shouts again. The Bitch looked on coolly, the smile having vanished, no other emotion crossing her features. After a moment, the Bitch gave a single firm nod of her head. Jayne thought he saw his life flash before his eyes.

The knife wielding leader threw curses and obscene gestures with his free hand at the cold face in the window for several seconds before he turned to the Merc with the intention of carrying out his threat—

Then he really screamed.

The ramp was closing. The noise and the stamping all the outlaws were making had masked the sound and the vibration. In moments, they would _all_ be sealed into the airlock at the front of _Serenity's_ Cargo Bay—

Where the hard faced woman could simply pump out all the air, turning the airlock into vacuum, turning them all into—

In the mad scramble to beat it over the closing ramp, Jayne was completely and totally ignored. He went just as completely into the rage he had been working up, inflamed and incensed by the fact that _THE BITCH_ was about to close him up in the airlock as well. He struck out as the last of the outlaws went by him, maybe breaking the guy's ribs or something. He then yanked out his pistol, frantically reloading it as he yelled for the Bitch to drop the ramp so he could at least _shoot_ some of the _dao mei de_ in the back as they ran away—

The ramp clanged into the closed/sealed position—

A moment later, the inner doors came open. Kaylee was through when the doors were barely wide enough for her to slip through. "Jayne, are you alright? Did they hurt you? Do I need to get Simon?"

Jayne stood without movement, his gun in his hand, staring at the closed ramp as if he was still looking out over the town on the other side of it. "I'm fine," he grated in a tone that sounded like he was chewing steel. He looked at Kaylee half shouting, "I'm fine! Ya hear me! Fine!"

Kaylee took a half step back. She had only seen Jayne this angry a couple of times before. He more than frightened her when he was like this. He seemed like an animal that was about to go out of control. She brought a warding hand up in front of her as she told him, "I—I was just worried—"

"I said I'm FINE!"

"Jayne!"

At that calm, cold voice, Jayne whipped around—

Lady found herself staring into the muzzle of the Mercs gun.

It didn't seem to faze her. Her eyes turned to ice; her face became that of fearless stone.

The madness flared in Jayne's eyes.

The fire met the ice.

The two stood as if statues. Kaylee didn't know wither to scream or stop breathing.

"You keep your gorram mouth shut you _chou biaozi,"_ Jayne grated.

Lady's face didn't change; her tone went down to several hundred degrees below zero. "Like I'm going to drop a clanger by allowing you to take it out on Kaylee. If you're gagging to get knotted at someone dickweed, do it with me!"

The fire in Jayne's eyes flared even brighter. He took a moment to grind his teeth before he managed to get out, "don't you _ever_ set me up for somethin like that again."

"And just _how_ was I supposed to leave it out?" Lady's voice was clearly angry—which caught Kaylee by surprise considering how non-reactionary Lady normally was around Jayne. "Would you rather that I just let them kill you," she went on. "Or let them on the ship where they might have killed Kaylee as well as you and me and everyone else on board when they had what they wanted?"

"They told me they were just gonna knock me out," he snarled at her even as his hind-brain finally started to work with visions of how Mal was going to react once he got back.

"And how were we to know that?" came the hot answer from Lady. "Even with that, from all I've heard since I've come aboard, do you really trust men like that to keep their word?"

"Yeah!" Jayne snapped at her. "There's a code of sorts—"

"And does the code ever get broken?"

Jayne had to stop. For he had broken the code himself more than once.

The anger boiled over inside him. When that mixed with the embarrassment of being shown up by this _shabi_ again plus what was going to happen when Mal got back—considering that he hadn't even _gotten his whiskey—_

"I oughta kill you." Jayne grated, his mind searching for some way to turn this into a win for him and not finding any room to make that happen.

"And I'd say that someone ought to kick your bloody arse up between your spackhead ears," she snapped back at him, a fire equal to what was in his eyes flaring in hers. "You were _told_ not to go over there—"

"That ain't none of your—_di lie de_ business," he snarled at her.

"No it's not!" Lady snarled right back at him. "You _made_ it my business! I may not have been here long but there are some things which just might be _common fucking sense_!"

Jayne curled a lip. "Don't you talk to me like that—" that came out downright deadly.

"Have I got your attention then?" she shot back at him, shuffling her feet into a sideways stance that looked _almost_ relaxed. "Are you ready to stop being a bloody twonk—"

"_STOP IT!_" Kaylee screamed.

The Merc finally reacted to the fright in the Engineers voice.

"Jayne," Kaylee was crying, "_please_ put the gun down."

It was less than a foot from Lady's nose. Jayne's finger had been rubbing the trigger.

Jayne glanced at Kaylee's frightened, tear-streaked face before looking back across at Lady—

Actually taking the time to _look_ at Lady—

Whose face was totally devoid of emotion, wolf-like eyes in a lionesses face fearlessly looking into the muzzle of his gun.

"What's it to be?" she spoke in a tone also devoid of emotion. "You're tooled up, I'm not. If you feel that you really need the advantage of that piece of metal in your hand—"

More things started to register in Jayne's brain. Part of it was the degree of focus emulating from Lady; he realized that her hands where hovering right in front of her belt buckle like some of those fancy fighters he had seen—

His mind reevaluated the odds versus the return he would have if he kicked Lady's behind once and for all versus what he would have to put up with once Mal got back—

"Jayne," Kaylee was pleading.

Lady's eyes were going—black. Jayne thought he could see—his memory of her eyes during her tantrum in the Dining Area—

Was it worth it?

Because he really didn't believe that she could—she really didn't believe that she could take his gun away from him before he pulled the trigger? She really couldn't think that she had any chance of taking him down if she did get the gun as a start before the two of them got full bore into a brawl?

Could she?

Then there was Mal and with that thought was the memory of a wrench to the back of his head and him being stuck out in that same airlock he had just been in as the air around him turned cold and thin while _Serenity's_ Captain made his displeasure _very_ known through the small porthole and the walkie talkie.

"Arrrgggghhh!' he half yelled as he shook his gun in Lady's face before turning and stomping off for his cabin—

Which didn't even have a bottle of anything he could drown his anger in.

He didn't look back.

Lady watched him go up the ladder. When he finally disappeared into the forward companionway she muttered, "someone needs to sort that one out. If I hadn't promised the Captain—"

"Thank you," came Kaylee's voice from behind her.

Lady turned around, looking at the Engineer who was trying to wipe the tears from her eyes.

"Thank you," Kaylee said again. "I thought you two were gonna hurt each other—"

_She's shaking all over_

That observation was all Lady needed to come over to the smaller woman whom she then folded into a close embrace.

"I'm sorry," was the whispered admission from the bigger woman.

Kaylee nodded her acceptance. No further words were said.

* * *

Mal was not happy when he got back. In fact, he was in half a mood to have Wash take off with Jayne in the open airlock again. But at the same time, he understood part of what Jayne had to be feeling. He just wasn't sure what he should do about it.

That little something was telling him to just let it all pass—

At the same time he had to wonder if his mysterious passenger was starting to feel some of her oats—and just what might come out of that kind of thing.

All he could do was deal with it as it came. Right now, there were some chores to be done after which a drink was in order.

* * *

Jayne waited in his cabin until he felt the ship take off on the 'shift' that Mal wanted. Even then he waited until the sound of the engines and the vibration told him that they were coming back in for their landing.

He came out onto the forward ladder landing to see Mal, Zoe, Simon, Kaylee and the Bitch standing, waiting next to the control panel for the lock/ramp. Mal looked up.

"Bout time you came out." The Captain's tone confirmed that he was 'less than happy' with the Merc but would let it ride for the time being.

As if Jayne gave a gorram at the moment. He just ignored Mal as he stomped down the ladder. He walked over to the center directly behind the doors, completely shoving off the looks and stares he was getting. He kept his eyes glued on the seam in the hatch, waiting.

Mal finally stepped over to him, holding out a paper to him, "look, here's a list we need—"

"I'm goin go get drunk. Anythin you want me to do can wait until mornin."

Mal's face went just a bit stubborn even if he kept his tone neutral. "Now I can understand—"

Jayne's face snapped over so that his eyes burned into Mal's. "I don't think you can. So either get away and leave me alone or kick me off the boat!"

That . . . took Mal a little aback. "Okay," he finally said, visibly backing down, "it'll get taken care of." Mal nodded again. "Have a good time."

With that, the felt the 'bump' of Wash putting them down. Jayne suddenly left his spot, roughly pushed his way through the group, hitting the hatch controls before they were completely settled. He was out the doors and going down the ramp before it had even grounded—

—leaving heavy silence in his wake.

Finally Lady sighed, turning to look at Mal, "sir, I'm sorry that—"

Mal waved her apology away. "Look, we're already been through this. What you did had to have been one of the more—what did Wash call it—'inventive ways' to head off trouble that I think I've ever heard of. It had its flaws but for a spur of the moment thing, it was the best you could do."

He looked firmly at Lady as he went on so she could know just how her felt. "Yeah, I would have been _fen nu de_ if I had been in Jayne's place but the same goes if I had been in yours bein it was just you and Kaylee and you with no arms. In the end, Jayne knows that I would probably sacrifice him if that was the only option I had."

"And what it didn't do," Zoe spoke up with approval, "was endanger all of that crowd out there which is probably what would have happened if Mal and I had been here and it fell into a shootout between sides."

Lady gave a shrug of acquiescence even as she said, "well, I still feel bad—"

"If you feel that bad about it," Mal said in a level voice as he came over to her, "then I'm gonna give you a proper punishment to fit the crime."

Both Kaylee and Simon started to open their mouths to protest the Captains treatment of Lady. Mal stopped them with a raise of his hand.

"Ah, ah, must keep discipline you know. As a matter of fact, I think I should include the other member that was involved it the fracas as well."

Kaylee looked struck for a moment. Lady turned fully toward Mal, "sir—"

Mal held up the list in front of her face. "This here is the shopping list that I was gonna to have Jayne fill. Since you do so well with the shopping for all our food, we're gonna add this little chore to your workload. If you do as well with it as you do the food, we might have more money left over for some of those fancier deserts that you're always talking about."

Lady stood stunned, looking at the list in the Captains hand as if it was something alive and slimy that was about it bite her. "But sir, I don't know where—I can't speak—"

"No you don't and no you can't," he agreed even as he reached out to gently take Kaylee's arm. "That's why your partner in trouble is gonna go with you. She can show you how to find all those places as well as handle any language problems that come up."

Simon and Kaylee exchanged looks. They had intended to do some shopping together.

Then Mal was pushing the two women out ahead of him, telling Simon, "sorry Doctor. Duty calls. You'll have your opportunity later."

As Mal continued to push Lady and Kaylee down the ramp, Simon stood next to Zoe and remarked in an abstract way, "would this be grounds for mutiny?"

Zoe crossed her arms and replied, "probably not but it would definitely be cause for a round of relationship counseling."

* * *

Jayne sat nursing his eighth whiskey. He had moved on to the harder stuff after four beers. He had thought by now that he should be starting to mellow out and peel off the stress—

Except—

Jayne had passed the first two "friendly' bars even though it had been well over a mile from the dock. The third bar had been a half a mile further and had drawn him with the pleasant memories of a whore who had once worked here. That girl was long gone and Jayne was feeling too surly for feminine companionship anyway. But at least he had felt far enough away from the Bitch to allow himself to get his ego back underneath himself.

He had hated walking that far and didn't look forward at all to the trip back. But all the bars that were right around the dock areas were under the protection of the Chinese Triad groups—which was fine with him cause they kept it all in one sock and didn't take any shit. The Triads and the way they kept things quiet was one of the reasons why Mal had shifted the boat over to these docks in the first place.

But the Triads also put a 'protection' charge on every single thing; drink, food, whore and he wasn't having anything to do with 'buying protection' from anybody.

So he had made the walk, doing it only so he could get away and get the Bitch out of his mind—

But Gorram it to hell, a couple of hours after his own arrival, Mal had come into the same bar and he'd brought Zoe and the Bitch with him.

Jayne just stayed back in his dark corner letting the little serving girl bring him all his stuff. The place was only about a third full but his corner was _dark_. It allowed him to have a full view of the room although it was lacking a view of the front door. Mal, Zoe and the Bitch had taken a seat all the way across the bar in a place where Zoe could watch the door.

So in the darkness, Jayne knocked back another drink and growled out his hatred in silent stares across the room.

* * *

"You're having problems with this?" Zoe asked Lady in an understanding tone.

Lady was rubbing her temples. "I—yes I guess I am." She turned her head and looked at Mal, her features looking a little lost. "The very idea that you would be paid . . . in stolen medical supplies which you intend to resell—"

"The Alliance," Mal said in a hard tone even if he kept his face 'not angry', "holds onto medical supplies like they were gold. Next to food, stuff like that is the most needed and demanded item out here on the Rim. Unlike food, medical supplies mostly can't be grown."

"Although," Zoe added, "there are healers out here that depend on their own homegrown items to do their work."

"Anyway," Mal went on, "seems that the Alliance and some of the big companies use the medical supplies as leverage to get the people to do things they way they want."

Lady gave him a questioning look. "Are they withholding these items to encourage those out here to reach self sufficiency or are they doing it to bring rebelling citizens back into line?"

Fire flamed behind Mal's eyes, Lady holding up a hand of restraint. "Your pardon Captain, but you must remember that as far as your War of Independence, I must remain neutral. I am not saying that I agree or even condone what your Alliance is doing if they are in fact as oppressive as you indicate. Something tells me that I have been on—shall we say both sides of that very street several times."

Zoe's eyes narrowed. "If I understand what you just said," she ventured, "by the sound of that, you make it sound as if you were . . . with something we would consider . . . on the other side, something like the Alliance at one time?"

The flame in Mal's eyes were now zeroed in on Lady.

"I think," Lady said slowly, carefully choosing her words, "I have already said that I have known wars. But unlike your Unification War something tells me that I have known . . . I have participated in . . . many wars . . . and I have been on both winning and losing sides. Now . . . I must also believe that some of the sides I have been on . . . would not have been called 'the good guys'."

The fire in Mal's eyes kind of became just a little bit more focused. He seemed to gather himself to say something—

He then apparently thought better of it. He took a breath before asking, "so you think you've gotten your hands dirty a few times."

Lady absently nodded to this for she seemed to be intently thinking. "Yes," she finally said, "I do believe that occurred to me at some point in my life, most certainly more than a few times."

"And just how did that sit with your high and mighty feelins of right and wrong?"

Zoe did not allow it to show on her face, but her eyes tried to worm their way into her Captain's skull to bang his brain against the inside of that skull. Mal had had a few, but he was getting a little bit too far into his belligerent Browncoat mood considering just who it was that he was taking on. "Sir," she started—

Mal waved her off, visibly bringing himself down a notch, "it's okay," he said in a tone which tried—and almost seceded in sounding 'soothing'. "I'm not tryin to start a fight here but—" his eyes went back to Lady, "all things considerin, I think that it's a fair question to be asked."

Zoe glanced at Lady. It appeared as if she was in deep thought. Zoe wasn't sure if Lady had heard Mal's question and she hesitated as to if they should interrupt those thoughts.

"I think—" Lady said softly—_very_ tentatively, "actually, I can only believe that my oaths held me to those units and those campaigns that turned to evil even though on the inside I was sick and horrified—"

"Oaths?" Mal interrupted her, sounding both disbelieving and angry, "just like those _hunzhang_ who take their _oath_ to uphold the Alliance laws while what their really doing is—"

"Sir," Zoe said to him in a warning tone. Mal looked away, clearly angry.

Lady stared hard at the tabletop. She did not answer him.

Mal finally took a deep breath prior to turning back to drain his beer. He wiped his mouth with a sharp swipe of his forearm saying in a cutting tone, "heard that kinda stuff before. _Ta ma de_ excuse if you ask me. Sorta like what we heard about them Nazzies from way back on Earth-that-Was."

Lady looked up, she appeared startled—but it lasted only a moment before she asked, "you mean the Nazis?" Her eyes dropped down for a moment, Zoe heard her mutter, "why do I know about them?" She then seemed to shake the moment off, looking back up at Mal, asking, "how—?"

"There were those," Zoe said in as calming a tone as she could manage, "who were—let's just say on the propaganda side of the Browncoat movement—and they likened the Alliance militaries to the—you know the term Nazis?"

"I do," Lady replied although there was an uncertain look in her eyes.

Zoe wasn't about to ask just how Lady could have remembered such an obscure point of ancient history if she had not been a Browncoat who had heard the propaganda but—

"There were comparisons made," the First Mate went on choosing to move past her own internal questions, "which used the example of how the Nazis committed horrible atrocities without any acknowledgment of their personal responsibilities or qualms about committing those atrocities because they were held by their oaths to their leader who I guess was a real madman."

"The Purple Bellies," Mal growled, an ugly edge to his voice, "used their gorram 'oaths' to justify nukin entire planets turnin them into radioactive rubble." The Captain of _Serenity_ did not state that one of those planets was his homeworld.

Zoe's eyes shifted back and forth between Mal and Lady. Mal's eyes were burning at the woman, clearly waiting for her to respond before unloading on her. Lady's expression in the face of that hostility slowly slipping into her unemotional mask—but the eyes that looked out of it—

"If killing me would make you feel better Captain, I'll hand you the knife."

That—caused Mal to blink. It took him a moment to reorganize his thought enough to ask, "say what?"

"What I'm saying is that I agree with you sir," Lady's tone was very matter-of-fact. "In fact, I do have more than a feeling that at one point in my life, I held my own personal honor to be so badly damaged by having to stay faithful to a given oath that suicide was the only option left to me."

Lady's eyes dropped down to the table between them leaving Mal to look startled. "The problem was that I was caught in a trap," she went on. "My personal honor was in shreds making suicide the only 'honorable' choice I had left. The problem was that another 'oath', a deeper more personal one specifically forbid any thought of suicide—" she stopped, taking in a deep ragged breath.

"You two are the first to hear this—for I'm still really buggered as far as how much is memory and how much are dreams—but—I more than think that I was raised within some kind of . . . martial . . . clan."

Zoe glanced at Mal. His attention was engaged with Lady enough for his anger to be shuttled aside for the moment. In an effort to keep that going (causing Mal's anger to hopefully fade completely), she looked at Lady, asking softly, "clan?"

Lady shook her head, her hands coming back up to her temples. "It's all so confusing. So much of what I'm remembering is in my early years; but my teen years—it's like I had a split personality. There seems to be two distinctly different 'upbringings' that I had to live through. One was this 'clan', the other is—I don't know, it almost was like I was a prisoner in some kind of boarding school for 'proper young ladies' (pure scorn was in her voice as she said those words). I clearly enjoyed the clan life more—it was exciting and challenging—" she broke off in intense thought.

Mal had recovered from being startled. He was now watching Lady, his eyes smoldering. Zoe felt the compulsion to keep things moving asked the first question that came into her mind. "Do you think it was something to do with your folks?"

Lady's eyes glanced up at Zoe for a moment—she seemed a little surprised by Zoe's question. But then they snapped back down to the table as she was intently thinking before shaking her head. "I . . . don't know." She then looked back at Zoe questioningly, "why? What would that have to do with it?"

"Well—," Zoe kind of stalled for a moment, trying to get a handle on just what it was that she had asked, forcing herself to—she then seized on the memory of a girl she had known in boot camp and the stories that girl had told of her life. The thought came clear to Zoe and she was able to go on by saying, "somethin like that almost sounds like a girl I knew in the army. Like her, could it be that your folks were divorced and pulling you in two different directions. Your daddy had you in the . . . fighting clan while your mama forced you into the boarding school—" Zoe stopped as he realized that Lady had gone into a flash.

A big one. Lady's head actually dropped down until her nose was point straight down at the table top, her hands holding her head as if in pain. Zoe and Mal waited—

Then Lady began to talk. Zoe realized that she was talking even though she was still working her way through the flash . . . something which would be a first for one this big.

"No—that's wrong—it was my mother who was of the martial clan. Father was—some kind—something with the government. He wanted the bloody finishing school (the anger at that was clear in her voice). My parents—argued over it—but like everything else they—they were together, not separated or divorced because—my father was—he was a buggering politician—(she sounded appalled by that revelation) and such a thing would be damaging to his career—as would having a daughter who was less than a lady."

Zoe suddenly blinked. Although Lady's head was still down, something sparkled the table under her—and it took the First Mate a moment to realize that it was tears falling from Lady's eyes.

"Mum wouldn't have it though," Lady went on, her voice a little choked. "She wanted her heritage honored and because I was—" There came what sounded like a sniffle—

Zoe glanced at Mal who was watching Lady with a 'cold' look. She realized just how tweaked he was with Lady—

Not a good thing.

"I was the last hope for my mum," Lady was going on, still in the flash. "I was the youngest—and my older brother and sister were murdered when I was a tot—"

_All she's remembering is the bad_, Zoe realized. She wasn't sure what she could do to help Lady or head off the anger that was building in—

"I think that enough," Mal said in what could only be described as a hard, annoyed voice. "This isn't really the place for this kind a thing—"

_Serenity's_ Captain ignored the daggers that his First Mates eyes were shooting at him.

Mal looked around, "where's the girl with the next round?"

"Sir—" Zoe started again.

"Aw, forget it," Mal grumped. He didn't look at Lady whose head was still down. He did look over toward the door, "might as well get back. Ain't in the mood any more anyway."

Zoe continued to give him a fuming look. Mal knew that there would be a lecture once they got back to the boat but at the moment he didn't care. He was wondering if he should tell Lady that it was time for her to move on for it seemed that she was one of the Purple Bellies—

"I can't leave your question unanswered sir."

Mal looked back at Lady, slightly startled. She was looking at him, clearly trying to pull herself out of the flash as if she really wanted to get this issue between them resolved.

But to put it simply, Mal was feeling more than a little belligerent. This drink was supposed to relax him for there were too many things poking at his insides recently.

He had been feeling 'stupid' about the nature of the 'cargo' they had come all the way out to _Qing Long_ to deliver. He was still feeling put off by Inara. He was angry and frustrated with Jayne which made him frustrated, wondering and unsure as to Lady after what happened in the Cargo Bay.

Now there was the admission from Lady which could mean that she might be—because she kept refusing to see what the Alliance was and what Browncoats were—

He was also borderline with the booze at the moment which magnified all of that together—

"I don't think it would be good right now," he told her choosing to put if off until sometime when he wasn't feeling the way he was. "Somethin like this could cause some real problems between us. But it's also somethin like this is best left for the two of us somewhere private—" he then cast a 'I know I'm wrong' glance at Zoe as he added, "and I should have remembered that before I asked it."

After a moment, Lady reluctantly nodded.

"Let's go," Mal ordered. He heaved himself to his feet. Zoe and Lady followed suit, Zoe keeping her eye on Lady to make sure the woman was okay. Lady paused for a moment even as Mal started away from the table; she then raised her head, giving Zoe a nod indicating that she was alright before the two of them rose to their feet before heading out toward the door where their Captain had already gone out without them.

* * *

Jayne watched his Captain, First Mate and the Bitch get up and leave. A vicious smile came to his face as two others who had been seated behind Mal and Zoe immediately got up and followed the _Serenity_ people out. A moment later Jayne got to his feet, the smile not leaving his face. He left a tip, hitched his gun belt higher and started after the two groups with the exaggerated steadiness of someone who was full of alcohol but had a righteous mission to take care of before they collapsed.

* * *

"I think we're being followed," Zoe said in a low but carrying voice.

"I think so too," Mal acknowledged. "Right after we left the bar."

"Actually sir, they were in the bar with us," Lady said quiet, business like tone—the past unpleasantness apparently put away into a locker with the door closed. "They came in about twenty minutes after we did, noticed us and then sat down behind you and Zoe keeping their eye on us. Of the other four now in the group, one of them was waiting outside across the street when we came out. The other three joined up at that alley we passed a minute ago for a total of six."

"I had too much to drink," Mal said under his breath, his annoyance with Lady getting greater instead of lesser. "Anything else you want to pass onto us?" he asked letting his annoyance once again show.

"About our shadows, no, I don't have enough information. But were you aware that Jayne was in the same bar with us?"

That got Mal's attention. "What?" he managed to ask.

"He was back in the far corner out of the light," came the matter-of-fact statement. "Additionally, he came out of the bar right after our initial tail did. I have only seen him once since then but he seems to be following our followers."

"Great," Mal muttered. "Hope he has enough sense not too—"

The shot from behind them echoed down the narrow street.

Followed by a fusillade of additional shots.

Both Mal and Zoe rolled their eyes even as they turned around and unholstered their weapons.

* * *

Jayne rolled in the filth next to the pile of trashcans wondering _when_ did the group he was following turn from the initial pair into what seemed like half an army. His intention was to wait until they were in a stretch of street where there was no side street they could run off into, fire a shot into the air to get their attention then wait for Mal and Zoe to come running back in response to the shot to find that he had saved them from being bushwhacked from behind.

Sure, he hadn't kept the would-be bushwhackers in sight the entire time, had to do it that way to keep from being seen himself. But he had no clue as to when the others had joined the party. The question was could he keep from getting killed until Mal and Zoe arrived to take the heat off.

Jayne poked his head around the corner. He was in front of some kind of warehouse; the area there was thick with many different piles of crates and containers that filled his side of the street. The particular stretch had a fair amount of lighting in it. That had been one reason why he had acted here. It was a lot better than the unlit stretch further down which was where they probably would have jumped Mal and Zoe anyway. As it was, he was able to see a couple of sleeves behind barrels as well as some movement in the shadows of the boardwalk. Unfortunately, some of them were close enough to him that he couldn't come out enough to see all the way down the street to check on Mal and Zoe's arrival.

Assuming they arrived at all.

All those bullets flying past his head had caused Jayne to sober up to a remarkable degree. It now occurred to him that it was entirely possible that Mal and Zoe had just gone on their way back toward the ship assuming that the gunfire behind them had had nothing to do with them. Jayne considered this a moment. If that was the case, he'd distracted the bushwhackers enough to get them off of Mal and Zoe's trail. Then all he had to do was slip back away, leaving the bushwhackers to cuss at the night he had vanished into.

The only problem with that—was that he had chosen a stretch of street with no side alleys to turn off into. There was no way for him to retreat to the next street without exposing himself. If he did—

A blast of gunfire ripped through the crates around him, wood chips and fragments of whatever was in the crates peppering Jayne's clothing. He hugged the ground wondering just what he was going to do next.

* * *

Mal, Zoe and Lady slid up into a dark patch at the far end of the section of street. Mal was trying to get his eyes to focus in the darkness. "Is that someone next to the refuse cans?" he whispered to Zoe beside him.

"Yeah," Zoe confirmed. "And he's watchin for us in case we come back." She took a close look at both sides of the street. "No way to get to him, too open."

Zoe felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked back at Lady who silently pointed up and across. Zoe looked in the direction of the pointing finger. There was a balcony of sorts across the front of that building, the end of which was right over the waiting/watching person.

Mal looked back over his shoulder to see the two women considering; he looked to where they were looking. He shook his head and hissed, "no way to get to it."

"I can do it," Lady said with confidence.

"How?" Mal started only to be interrupted by a burst of gunfire from down the street. He looked back down toward the commotion, guessing that they were shooting toward where Jayne was probably hidden.

"He's trapped." Mal sounded more than annoyed.

"She can do it," Zoe whispered into his ear.

Now Mal was now beyond annoyed but—

"Shiny." (said without enthusiasm)

* * *

Jayne considered if he should fire a couple of times. Maybe Mal and Zoe would recognize the sound of his gun and then come back and help. If they didn't, it would only be a matter of time before one of the bushwhackers on his side of the street worked their way close enough to him to get a telling shot in. As it was he knew that he was a sitting duck because there was so much light about him—

That's when he got the idea.


	26. Demonstration

Chapter Twenty Six – Demonstration

* * *

Mal found it . . . a little creepy. In the half light from the nearby streetlamps, he watched the form of Lady crawl up the wall at the far end of the building like a spider. She then moved in a half crouch along the rickety-looking balcony. How she was able to move across it without any noise considering just how ramshackle the thing was perhaps the creepiest thing to him. But then again, several of his crew had echoed Kaylee's comments that the woman somehow moved noiselessly on almost any surface.

The other thing that had kind of thrown Mal was the fact that the last thing that Lady did before she slipped away to head back down the street was to reach around and whip her long ponytail into a rope. She had then proceeded to tie a knot in the end of it before stuffing the whole thing down the back of her top.

Once she was at the end of the balcony, Lady didn't waste time. She took a quick look below then launched herself over the rail. There must have been just a hint of movement or vibration from her jump for her target reacted, looking up just in time from Lady to come down on top of him feet first.

Mal waited for a moment, wincing at the sharp noise of the collision—hearing what he thought was a cry of pain from a male voice—

There was no reaction from farther down the street. They all must have been too focused on Jayne.

Then Zoe stood up and stepped out. She started to move toward where Lady had come down only to stop when a form rose up into sight.

But the form was clearly Lady. Mal snorted, not sure if he approved or not. But he joined Zoe and together they started carefully forward on their side of the street. As they passed even where Lady was, she too started forward—

Mal felt a shock to his system. Lady had a gun in her hand—probably taken from the man she had just taken down.

For a reason he couldn't explain, Mal didn't know if the idea of Lady carrying arms was a good idea or a bad one.

But there was nothing he could do about it at the moment.

More than anything, the thing that bothered him was that Lady was holding the gun like she knew what to do with it. In fact she was holding it in a manner which had been called 'a tactical stance' during his Browncoat training—a method of carrying a weapon ignored by him because his daddy had taught him how a man held a gun—

He didn't know why this surprised him. Part of his hindbrain told him that it should have been a given considering that it was Lady but still—

A shot came from down the street. Followed a moment later by another, a moment later by another. Zoe was watching intently and after a moment—

"Someone's shooting out the streetlights."

"That's Jayne," Mal growled.

* * *

Jayne really was trying to be careful. He was shooting out the lights that he figured wouldn't lose their kerosene and start a fire somewhere. It wasn't that he cared about some townsfolk's house burning down but he cared if a fire got started that would fry his ass before he was able to make his getaway. The problem was that he didn't have a good angle of fire on the ones he really needed to get and he just might have to chance burning down—

Shots started to hit his crates. It wasn't a massive amount, but a regular steady fire that—

Jayne spun about, sticking his gun around the corner of the crate and started firing blindly. The way the rounds were coming his way told him that someone was making their move on him and this steady fire was meant to keep his head down. He had to throw it off if possible.

Mal, Zoe and Lady stepped out into the lighted portion of the street in time to see three of the bushwhackers moving out into the street, keeping up a steady fire on Jayne's position while the other two added their own shots from cover (one on each side of the street). Mal shot the one in the middle of the street directly ahead of him. The round hit the man in the hip. This man whirled around, partially in reaction to the hit, which caused him to stumble down onto one knee. Seeing those from _Serenity_ now visible in the light, he raised his gun toward Mal even as he shouted a warning—

As the bushwhacker's gun came up at him, Mal shot him again. This time in the head, dropping him like a pole axed steer.

The other two exposed out in the street started to scatter—

The one furthest down the street shooting at Jayne from cover on their right side came around, raising his own gun toward the _Serenity_ crew. With an aimed shot, Zoe hit him center chest. He dropped his gun and staggered back, falling to the ground, dead before the dust settled.

The one in cover on their left side who had been moving up on Jayne through the warehouses piled crates and containers hurriedly dropped down into a gap within those piles, turning around to snap a shot at Mal as he did so—

Mal started to bring his own gun around to respond—

Lady had moved to the far left getting in among the beginnings of those piles and stacks of crates. She fired once at the one who had just snapped the shot at Mal striking his shoulder. With a cry of pain, the man lost the gun and dropped down behind a stack of crates out of sight.

One of the two left in the street quickly scrambled left, making a running jump to get up into the stacks not far from the one Lady had just wounded. He had been turning to fire at Zoe when Lady took out his companion, causing him to turn his attention her way, firing a shot which zipped past Lady's ear as she moved sideways in behind the crate stack. Mal, who had been swinging to engage the one Lady shot, shifted his aim onto this one firing repeatedly as this bushwhacker dove into a gap in the piles.

The final bushwhacker who had been in the street scattered to the right side, making cover behind some barrels where he turned and fired at Zoe who ducked behind some containers. This bushwhacker then took a shot at Mal who was backpedaling into some other cover over next to Zoe. This bushwhacker continued to pop his head up and down from behind his cover, looking for the source of the other shot he had heard (he hadn't seen Lady yet) only to duck back down when Zoe rose up, getting off a shot at him that nearly parted his hair.

Zoe worked the lever-action of her Mare's Leg to eject/chamber, taking a moment to load up her weapons magazine full. She glanced back at Mal's position then across to where she thought Lady was—

In time to see Lady vault over the top of the large crate she had been behind going down behind a cluster of smaller containers in front of that—

The lone bushwhacker on the right side of the street got his first glimpse of Lady. He reacted even though there was no way he could have hit her given her speed and agility, coming up from behind his cover to take aim—

Mal was waiting, placing the bullet in through the man's left eye.

Things got quiet—

"Mal!"

It was Jayne calling from his hole.

"You okay?" Mal called back.

"I'm good. Can we get out of here?"

Mal didn't answer him for the question made him fume. IF Lady hadn't jumped into her new place, they all could have just backed off and got out (he was assuming that there was nobody behind Jayne because they hadn't yet joined the party). Well, maybe they still could—all he had to do was yell at Lady to pull back while he and Zoe covered her from their side—

There was a cry from the stacks on the other side—it sounded like a male voice, it sounded like a scuffle—.

"Mal?"

"Hold tight Jayne."

A moment went by—

It stretched out into a long minute—two—

Then Lady stood up.

As if she did this every day, she climbed—right out in the open and in front of everybody—up onto the top of the rows of stacked crates and containers. As bold as could be she walked over to the hole where the one she had wounded was hiding. She looked down into that hole, her pistol held low but ready—

"Come on out, it's over."

The bushwhacker, gory hand over the hole in his shoulder slowly came up.

"Just what the _shi dan_ do you think your doin—"

Zoe noted that despite the dangerous tone in Mal's voice, Lady did not take her eyes off of her victim.

Her reply was cool and firm, her tone of command fully present. "If you have an issue with my tactics Captain, we can address them at a later time. Right now, if one of you could recover his weapon from the ground and then check him for any additional weapons—

"Shoot that _gouzaizi_!"

It was Jayne, up from behind his cover, wild eyed as he saw one of his assailant still standing with The Bitch looking like she was refusing to kill the _lan yeung_.

Zoe moved before things got out of hand. She stepped past Mal, her passing him snapped him out of the outraged anger he was focusing on Lady. Zoe scooped up the gun Lady's bushwhacker dropped when she wounded him, ordering the bushwhacker to turn around as she hopped up on the low crate between them.

"Zoe—" Mal started to call—

"In a moment sir," was her reply as she intentionally chose to ignore her Captain.

Despite his grunts of pain, it took only a minute for Zoe to get the bushwhackers arms tied behind his back using the belt from his pants. She did so in a way that kept her between the man and Mal/Jayne. The fact that there was absolutely no sound from behind her as she did so made her all the more wary.

Lady in the meantime, as soon as she had seen that Zoe had that one secured, turned, walked back across the row of crates, dropping down into the space she had come up out of. She bent down—a moment later she was pulling that bushwhacker—the one who had shot at her—the one Mal had shot at and missed—to his feet, his arms also bound behind him with his belt. Lady then pushed that one ahead of her as they wound their way around to where they could come out of the stacks onto the street—

Jayne stormed up, shoved his gun muzzle into the space between the bushwhackers eyes—

That bushwhacker cried out knowing his death was imminent—

"Leave it!"

Jayne turned around, looking at Mal in disbelief.

Mal's face was as grim as death but he wagged his head back over his shoulder—Jayne looked past Mal; saw several men trotting up the street toward them—

Men with badges on their chests.

The Merc cursed under his breath.

* * *

"The same bunch that were tryin to take our payment—they were _still_ tryin to get the payment so they go and stake out the bars and then try to take _you_ down! I move in to save your asses, they try to kill me and _she_ takes em alive!"

"Seems to me that you were doin your best to get yourself killed," Zoe told the Merc coolly. "Both times."

"I was tryin to keep all of you from gettin shot in the back!" Jayne yelled back. "You don't know what'of happened if I hadn't stepped in!"

From her usual place behind the pilot's chair, Zoe kept half an ear/eye on the irate Merc while she kept the other half of her eye on Mal who was currently sitting in that chair, stone faced, not saying a word. They had been detained and interviewed by the town Marshall before being released without charge. The fact that three of the bushwhackers in the fight had been those who had tried to board _Serenity_ earlier had at least given them the reason for the attack which had seemed reasonable to the Marshall. It also helped that there had apparently been 'witnesses' in some of the nearby buildings who after the first shots, had seen most of the battle through their windows so they were able to give testimony that the situation went down pretty much as the _Serenity's_ crew claimed.

Mal had immediately brought everybody back to the boat. He led the other three up to the bridge, closing the space tight hatch after them.

He hadn't said a word since then.

Jayne in the meantime had done nothing but vent his spleen as he moved back-and-forth across the Bridge like a caged cat (he had also grabbed and thrown several small objects as emphasis for several of his points). Of the three he had recognized as his prior assailants, two of those were the ones who had lived to talk to the Town Marshall—who recognized them as members of one of the local crime bosses posse. Being that it had been Lady who had 'spared' both of them (that being the one that Lady had shot and wounded while the other was the lookout that Lady had jumped down on); every other word out of Jayne's mouth had been directed toward Lady in a less than pleased way. Jayne had called Lady a coward for refusing to 'fight like a man', he called her a traitor for refusing to kill for a crewmate, he's called her every word/term that he could think of in two languages regarding her being a spineless, timid, panty-wetting—

Lady was in her spot in front of the co-pilots panel. _Which I'm all for_ Zoe thought, _because that puts a physical barrier between her and Jayne. But she's not leaning back against it, she squarely facing the confrontation in front of her,_ which she was with her arms folded across her chest, the mask fully in place, even her eyes were veiled.

A confrontation that as far as Zoe was concerned, going nowhere. Jayne was going on and on; Mal was sitting doing nothing—

"Well, I think that's enough for now—"

Mal stood as he said these words, his tone cold and hard. The fact that he placed his hand on his gun as he did so told Zoe that he was about to lay down the law.

"What's gonna be enough," Jayne told _Serenity's_ Captain in an ugly tone, "is that you get this _lanbi_ off of the boat (he was pointing at Lady)." He then stepped up nose-to-nose with Mal—

"Cause if you don't, I'm gonna kill her plain and simple."

Mal didn't even blink. "Plannin on shooting her in the back? That's the only way you could do it and that ain't gonna happen on my boat."

Jayne rocked back, amazement flashed on his face for just a moment before an even uglier look came onto it.

"You think I haveta shoot her in the back? You think this _sanba_ can take me? You really think that?"

Mal's eyes were like black diamonds. "I don't think she can—I know she can. I also think that there's a good chance that she can take me." He nodded grimly at the Merc. "Think 'bout that. What does that tell you?"

Wonder almost—almost came into Jayne's eyes. But it was quickly banished by disbelief.

"You've lost your mind." Jayne said this with a shake of his head. He looked for a moment at Zoe, then glanced back at Lady, his hatred flaring—

"If I had someplace to go, I'd be gone. But I don't—at least not right now. So you best stay outta my way." With that, Jayne turned and stormed over to the hatch, yanking it open—

"I mean what I say Jayne," Mal told the Merc in that same hard tone. "You _will_ be peaceable on my boat—or we're gonna have more than another little talk."

The Merc stomped off the bridge without another word.

A long moment of silence passed.

"How much of what happened do you remember?" Mal made the question sound like an accusation even as he _didn't _look at Lady.

Lady's voice was cold, almost mechanical.

"All of it up to the point where the bullet went by my head. It faded out after that although in all honesty, the bits prior to that moment are a little fuzzy but discernible. And the fuzziness—_that_ happened right about the time I was moving to climb up to that balcony." She waited a moment before adding, "things came back while we were being questioned by the authorities."

"You aware of what you did?"

Lady nodded. "Like what happened with Kaylee in the service crawlway in the Dining Area, I am aware of what I intended to do. The rest of it I was able to get the gist of during the Marshall's interview."

Mal's eyes burned into her, trying to pierce that wall around her like her eyes could go through him and everything he knew.

He had to ask—

"Can you kill someone?"

Zoe blinked. Mal's question made her wonder if he had ever had the conversation—had ever told Lady about what the Marshall had said back on Beylix after the fight in the bar and what Lady had done to the one Scrapper—

Zoe looked to Lady, saw that her eyes had gone as hard as Mal's. But the tone of her voice was very matter-of-fact when she replied—

"All I need is the right reason Captain. Which tonight wasn't there but might have been if circumstances change as they will do in a dynamic combat situation." Her eyes narrowed. "The understanding and agreement between us Captain was that I would not knowingly do anything against the Laws of the Land—that includes the use of deadly force—if other options are available as long as those options do not put others in danger; that last part being the exigent circumstance that I said would be necessary for me to take such action. Nothing that happened tonight within _my_ scope of the engagement crossed that line. Which does not mean that that could never happen sometime in the future."

She started to come around the console, "believe it or not, there is a part of me that heartily and completely agrees with Jayne's expressed opinions in this matter. I have feelings and impressions of my time in other units, with other . . . crews . . . and some of those I believe, were a tighter bunch that what you have on board this vessel. As such, there would be a loyalty there that might have required specific actions which at present I cannot do but of which I would not and did not hesitate to do back then."

"There is in addition my still unfocused impressions and feelings about my own personality in matters of this kind. Something tells me—and you may choose to believe this or not—" she came to stand directly in front of Mal, as close as Jayne had been moments before, "that I have at times been far more ruthless and bloody than Jayne is. In fact, it is quite probable, given that earlier conversation between us which you chose not to finish, that at one time or another in my past, I have been most certainly, more ruthless, bloody and insensitive to death—" her eyes locked into Mal's—"than you are Captain."

Lady's eyes continued to hold Mal's as she told him in a tone of ice—

"I _know_ . . . that I have been killing people far longer than you have been alive Captain Reynolds. And I assure you that more often than not, those deaths were the result of my own direct actions with a weapon—or up close and personal with my own hands—rather than some impersonal assault from an orbiting ship. Rest assured that if I am presented with a situation where despite all my other skills, I am forced to use deadly force—I will not hesitate to do so."

Mal remembered what the Shepherd said she claimed was her age. If that was right, she just might have been involved in whatever her military/mercenary life was for fifteen/twenty years before he had been born.

Not that he gave a gorram about it. Right now he was stretched too thin to give much of a thing about anything.

However, she didn't seem to give a gorram about how he felt for—

Her eyes got even harder than his had been—giving Mal just a glimpse of that 'black hole' look which appeared in her eyes. Her tone was equally as unforgiving.

"I do not wish for you to become upset with me sir. However . . . in this case, things will have to be very, very clear. For regardless of your opinion of me and the way I might do things . . . I will tell you with no uncertainty Captain Reynolds, that _I_ and only I will be the one to decide when and if I chose to use deadly force. _No one_ will dictate such a response to me."

Despite the look in Lady's eyes, Mal wasn't about to back down—but he also wasn't ready to continue the battle at this moment.

"Well, I guess that you know that at some point soon, we will be finishin that talk," he told her in an almost . . . angry tone. His eyes were just as hard when he added, "cause there are some things that I think I need to hear from you . . . cause if I don't hear what I think I should hear—"

He left the threat hanging.

At that point, he consciously backed off everything, actually taking a step back from Lady, breaking eye contact, trying to relax the way he sounded as he said, "in the meantime tho, I'm headin to my bunk and a bottle of my own and I don't think I'm gonna be conscious anytime 'for afternoon so don't set breakfast for me."

"Yes sir," came her reply without a trace of emotion on her face or in her voice.

He intentionally did not look at her when he told her, "wait down by the Dining Area for a bit. That should be far enough away for those ears of yours to be outta range. I'm gonna tell somethin to my First Mate here and she'll pass your part of it along to you. I want it done 'for either of you go to bed."

"Yes sir."

With that, Lady moved past Mal to the Bridge hatch, her passage silent compared to Jayne's departure.

Mal looked back over his shoulder to make sure she was gone then turned all away around in that same direction as Zoe came off the console, stepping up to him.

Before he could say anything, Zoe started to open her mouth—

"Don't!" he stopped her. He really didn't like cutting Zoe off but he just wasn't in the mood.

Her face turned into a look of complete fuming but she held her tongue . . . barely.

"You want to jump down my throat," he went on, "do it when I'm feelin a little less like a stung bear cause right now I'm about ready to jump back."

Mal saw Zoe bank the fire in her eyes but not the resolve behind that fire. "Yes sir," was all she said.

Mal took a deep breath—closing his eyes—holding it for a minute before he opened them again—

"Let the Shepherd kinda know what's going on and ask him to keep half an eye on Jayne. Best tell your husband as well. Don't need him sayin something offhand that gets under Jayne's skin."

Zoe took this in, nodding after a moment at the reason and logic in it. "Yes, sir," she told him before asking, "and the others?"

"Just tell them that we were in a shootout and that Jayne's . . . upset. Don't give em any facts. Just tell them to walk softly around him for a while."

"They're already doing that," was Zoe's matter-of-fact observation.

Mal closed his eyes again feeling like he should be counting to ten—he did not want to get into an argument with his First Mate over the current atmo on board as far as the crew (or at least one certain member of it).

He opened his eyes again only to see an unforgiving look in Zoe's. She obviously thought that he could be handling the whole situation better.

"You think I should kick Jayne off?" he snapped despite his resolve not to do so. "Kick him off and keep Lady? Whatdya think he'll do if I do that? Especially right now when he's so—"

Zoe's eyes went narrow. "You think he'd go to the Alliance?"

Mal gave an elaborate arm-waving shrug. "I don't know—but he's said how many times that he's been tempted to do so but the money wasn't good enough. But if he gets pissed like he is now, he may not care about the money—just his own gorram pride."

Zoe's eyes were now considering—after a moment she had to give a reluctant nod of agreement.

Mal then took another real deep breath—he didn't want to do what he was about to do—but he didn't see where he had a choice.

"I want you to take Lady down to the arms locker and give her a gun."

Zoe actually seemed startled. She looked at Mal with her mouth open for a moment—

"Give her everything she needs, ammo, the whole works and let her know she's to use it if she needs to," he went on . . . then he looked down at the deck adding, "hopefully she won't need to."

That made Zoe understand. "This is because of Jayne." It was a statement instead of a question.

Mal nodded reluctantly before looking tiredly at his First Mate. "Seem's that despite everythin that's happened, he still doesn't see her as bein able to take him in a fight. Seein her wear a gun tho—might make him think twice and stop him from doin somethin stupid before he starts."

Again, after thinking about it, Zoe nodded her agreement. She then looked at her Captain, the hesitation plain in her tone, "what do I tell her about it?"

Mal shrugged. "The truth. I'm pretty sure she'd understand. Side's, she's got a thing 'bout the truth . . . and I would guess that would include things that she wouldn't want to hear—" he broke off at the look that came into Zoe's eyes—

"What?" he had to ask wondering _now_ where he was going wrong.

"Speaking of truth," Zoe asked him in a _very_ pointed tone, "did you ever tell her what the Marshall on Beylix told all of us—did you ever tell her that she injured that one Scrapper so bad that he was gonna die?"

Now it was Mal's turn to look a little startled—

—followed by a little sheepish/a lot annoyed at himself expression.

"Never mind," Zoe told him with a wave of her hand. She started to turn away from him, her own annoyance clearly visible. "Anything else sir before you retire for the evening?"

"No," was his reply. He reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose as he was now annoyed with himself as well as everyone else it seemed. "Let's just try to keep everything quiet."

She gave him one last look over her shoulder, "I'll do that sir being that I _don't_ intend to bury myself in a bottle tonight." She then turned her back to him—

"Sleep well sir." With that, Zoe left the Bridge.

Mal stood for a moment . . . knowing despite any desire or need on his part, that he would be sleeping without having his hatch completely closed and there would be no bottle of anything but water for him that night.

* * *

". . . so . . . are you okay with that?"

As she finished her explanation, Zoe could feel Lady's eyes burning into her—

At the same time, the First Mate was able to tell that she was not the subject of that intense look—despite everything else, Lady did not seem to be a 'shoot the messenger' type of gal.

But she was definitely not happy. She was leaning back against the wall next to the hatch to the Dining Area, arms crossed in front of her, one leg cocked up in order for her to place that foot on the wall behind her (Zoe wondered if Lady knew that she'd caught the ends of her long hair under her boot heel by assuming that pose). This was one time that Zoe was not able to get an inkling of what was going through Lady's mind.

After a moment, Lady's eyes actually seemed to focus on Zoe; an action which was followed by a curt, "why are you asking? If that's what the Captain wants—"

_She IS pissed_ was Zoe's appraisal. But before the First Mate could respond, Lady pushed herself away from the wall, waving off any response from Zoe with one hand as she said, "never mind. I shouldn't take it out on you . . . none of this is _your_ fault."

Zoe gave her an apprising look before she told Lady, "it's not your fault either."

"Some of it is," Lady muttered. "I think that I just need to keep my mouth shut around the Captain."

Now it was Zoe's turn to give the other woman a look but didn't feel as if this was the right time to offer a counterargument—things were still too hot and raw.

Lady sighed with, "let's get on with this." With that she moved past Zoe into the companionway leading down toward the Cargo Bay. Zoe wanted to roll her eyes with frustration but managed not to. She fell in behind the other woman as the two of them started down.

Then her face quirked as something occurred to her. "Can I ask something?" she ventured.

"Always." Lady looked back over her shoulder at Zoe. "Even if I were mad at you—which I'm not—I won't ever shut you out because I know that whatever it is, I don't think you have a malicious bone in your body."

Zoe snorted. "Not true. Anybody ever tell you about Niska?"

"Then he must have more than deserved it," was Lady's rejoinder. "Anyway, what did you want to ask?"

"Who's Heather Hudson? That's the name you gave the Marshall when he asked for one?"

Lady stopped dead in her tracks on the ladder, Zoe having to rock to a stop to avoid a collision.

Lady didn't move for almost half a minute. She then muttered—"I did . . . didn't I." Her head/top half of her body turned around to face Zoe but her eyes were clearly in a medium flash, " . . . a friend I think . . . something tells me a very good friend." A long moment passed before—

"I don't remember much more than . . . feelings . . . but—" She suddenly looked up at Zoe—there was almost what could be described as an 'amused twinkle' in her eyes as she said, "something tells me that you'd like her; that she's even more blunt and focused than I am."

Zoe snorted again. "Blunt maybe—but I don't think that anybody can be more focused that you are." That caused Lady to give her such a look that Zoe had to raise an eyebrow is question—

"Something tells me that at some point in my life . . . I was too focused . . . causing me to lose sight of everything else." A small sad smile came to Lady's face. "Everything I've remembered has caused me to come to the conclusion that I did that because I was running away from something else." With that she shrugged before starting down the ladder again. Zoe after a moment followed.

"Before you ask," Lady suddenly said as they actually came out onto the Cargo Bay deck, "my impressions are that I was actually running away from several things." She stopped and turned back in order to look Zoe in the eye. "Did the Captain or Inara tell you about the nightmare of the young man killed in the accident?"

Zoe dead stopped—her face going blank.

Lady gave another sad smile followed by a gentle nod, "its okay. I know that everything I say or admit too is getting passed around. It's only natural that the lot of you are curious."

Zoe didn't want to . . . but she had to nod her head in admission.

Lady confirmed the understanding with a nod of her own before going on with, "that was one thing. Another seems to be—" she had to stop as if she was groping for the concept—

"Another is that—when the event happened with that young man—I was in what should probably be called a 'space navy' of some kind." She shook her head as if trying to sort out the impressions. "The truth be known—I was—I was discharged or dismissed from it." She glanced up at the 'flicker' in Zoe's eye. Another sad smile came to her lips. "For what it's worth, the impression I get was that it was an 'honorable dismissal'." Then her eyes dropped. "What I said earlier, the flash about my parents—the tone I used when I realized that my father was a 'politician'—" Now the smile went grim. "Seems that I don't do well with politics. The feeling that I get was that I did something that as far as the navy was concerned was proper and correct but the politicians found it . . . difficult. I was found to be a liability. I'm not sure if it was that I was an embarrassment to the government or that they needed a 'sacrificial lamb' to appease whoever else—some other 'country' or 'planet' or 'system'—was involved in the event. In any case I was dismissed." The grim look changed to one of . . . puzzlement.

"There was something else as well . . . but that's a real blur." Her eyes went inward. "My feeling is that . . . whoever it was that was on the other side of whatever the 'incident' was that got me into trouble—they had it in for me despite what the politicians did with sacking me. Those politicians were apparently worried about another 'incident'—something like the 'other guys coming after me'—so the politicians in power, of which apparently my father was a part of, they thought it best if I left the system."

Lady's eyes cleared, she looked up at Zoe and stated firmly, "I do believe that _that_ is when I went off and became a mercenary."

"Well, I guess that would make sense," was all Zoe could say.

"I think that there were other things as well," Lady went on. "But the fact remains that I was running away—which was contrary to the tenets of that martial clan that I was trying to tell the Captain about—" that caused her to pause as if other memories started to come back.

The look on her face—Lady's eyes were downward—she mumbled something—the only word that Zoe kind of caught might have been 'oath—"

With that, Zoe reached out, placing a hand on Lady's shoulder. "Look, I _know_ that you need to talk about this . . . and that . . . but you're exhausted . . . and I'm not doing that good either."

After a moment, Lady nodded at the logic of what Zoe had _not_ said; that no one was in the shape to have a proper conversation about it all under the current circumstances.

Lady blew out a tired breath up past her nose, the stray hairs flying. "Yeah, you're bloody well right about that." She turned back toward the rear of the Cargo Bay, "as I said before, let's get on with it."

". . . so look through and see if there's anything that you can see using."

Zoe finished opening the arms cabinet displaying its wares. She noted that Lady's eyes looked as if she knew what she was looking at—

Then the eyes went wide with a 'flash'—

Zoe steeled herself, wondering—

It was almost with reverence that Lady reached into the cabinet. Zoe noted with satisfaction that when Lady's hands came back out with the .45ACP Colt 1911A1, she conducted what looked like an instinctive safety check of the weapon but after that . . . all she did was hold it and look at it.

"Lady?" Zoe asked softly.

"Someone . . . special . . . carried one like this." She continued to almost caress it, her voice 'distant' showing she was still deep in the flash. "His is highly modified . . . customized . . . "

"His?" Zoe's voice was even softer.

Zoe was almost shocked to see tears were going down Lady's cheeks. This was like the flash in the bar when Lady was recalling her parents. Could it mean—?

"I—I don't—," was all Lady could say to Zoe's question.

Without a second thought, Zoe asked what to her could be the only reasonable possibility, "could it have belonged to your husband? Is that why it's so special?"

It took a moment—

Lady looked up—

Shock—

Disbelief—

"Husband?" she whispered—

As her eyes rolled into the back of her head—


	27. Change

Chapter Twenty Seven – Change

* * *

". . . nothing to do but see if she wakes up."

"What do you mean 'if'—"

"What I meant to say is that we'll have to see what or if she has problems or complications _when_ she wakes up."

That clarification made Zoe feel just slightly better but at the same time—

Once the majority of the events of the prior evening had been explained to Simon, he was clearly not happy with any of it and he clearly was as concerned about the possible outcomes to Lady as Zoe was. But _Serenity's_ First Mate was also forced to agreed that there was nothing that could be done until they had an idea—if they ever did given the strange quirks that seemed to follow Lady's memory problems like lambs after their mothers—of just what it was that had happened.

Lady lay on the Infirmary table, a bandage wrapping around her head. Zoe had been so startled by the reaction Lady had displayed to the question about her husband that the First Mate had been unable to react to the other woman's sudden collapse. It was one of the few times in her life that Zoe had been caught completely off guard and she felt more than bad about it.

The end results made her feel even worse.

Lady had fallen backwards from where she had stood into the aft bulkhead of the Cargo Bay, striking the back of her head against some of the piping there. It was a nasty cut but—Lady was still out forty minutes after the event. As Zoe had _seen_ Lady go down, the First Mate knew that Lady had not hit those pipes with anything that could be considered a significant force. Lady's fall could have been described more as a moderate 'deflation' instead of a quick/hard collapse. Given Lady's 'normal' resistance and fortitude in the face of injury, Zoe could not understand why she had not regained consciousness fairly quickly. To Zoe, that meant that there was another reason, another type of shock that was keeping Lady under. As there could be only one other possibility for her failing to regain consciousness—

It left Zoe feeling worried and responsible.

Simon obviously was worried for the same reasons. But he wasn't the one who could be called the 'cause' of Lady's collapse so his concern was strictly from the medical professional aspect. Zoe on the other hand—

"It's not your fault," River suddenly told her from across the room obviously reading Zoe's feelings if not her thoughts. She was giving Zoe what might charitably be called a 'severe' look as if she was trying to be Zoe's mother. The young woman couldn't come close to pulling such a moment off but the attempt was enough to cause Zoe smile despite all her other feelings and issues.

Which to the First Mate meant—_I guess it's time to deal with it._

That thought gave Zoe enough of a moment to take a deep breath, scoot herself forward, putting her feet on the floor (she had been sitting on the Infirmary countertop) even as she said, "might as well let the Captain know then."

"I would let the Captain sleep," Book spoke up from his place next to River. That caused Zoe to inwardly frown. She had been wondering if she might encounter some problems from other angles. Apparently she was about too.

When Lady had collapsed, Zoe, after making sure that there Lady had both a pulse and that she was breathing, moved quickly to get Simon from the Passenger Dorm. She had started through the hatch from the Cargo Bay into the Lounge—

Only to have River almost run her over. The young woman had been coming up the steps from the Lounge at Hard Burn. Moments later, as Zoe and River tried to get themselves untangled and back up on their feet, they were joined by Simon and Book, both of whom said they had been woken by Rivers precipitous exit from the Passenger Dorms.

In explanation to their questions, River told them that she had heard Lady 'scream'. When Zoe gently informed River that Lady's collapse had been as silent as it was unexpected, River—after a moment's thought—came to the conclusion that the 'scream' she had heard had to have come from Lady's mind rather than her vocal cords.

The end results of this however, meant that there were more witnesses to the event than Zoe would have liked. This was compounded by the fact that these same 'witnesses' could often be as forceful in their opinions and manners as she could be. Right now she was thinking that she was about to have a small disagreement with one of those witnesses.

"He's the Captain," Zoe told the Shepherd firmly, "he has to know."

"I'm not saying that he doesn't have to know," was Books gentle but firm reply. "He _is_ the Captain; of course he will have to be told what happened." He let Zoe absorb this for a moment before adding, "but I think that at this moment, he could use the rest better than he could use the knowledge." The Shepherd cocked his head to the side, "it seems to me that much of what has happened this evening (he cast an eye at the Infirmary clock) and morning has been aggravated by fatigue. The Captain doesn't need to make a decision; that is in the hands of the good Doctor." Book nodded sagely, "let him rest. You can tell him first thing when he wakes up."

Zoe's sense of duty and responsibility warred with her sense that the Shepherd was correct in his estimate of the situation—

"She didn't say . . . anything else?" Simon wondered as he looked up from his diagnostic panel.

Zoe was diverted from her others thoughts, something that she normally didn't tolerate—but this time she wasn't going to try and stop it from happening. "Nothing. It was like she was totally unaware of her husband; like she had no idea that she'd made those two statements—the one during the Jayne incident in the Dining Area and the one where she put the knife through her hand—regarding her husband."

"I don't think she was aware of them."

It took a moment—but then the three older adults all looked to the young woman with questions in their eyes.

River didn't see those looks. She was looking at Lady—guilt on her face. "I didn't realize—" she said softly to herself.

Simon glanced at both Zoe and Book—both of whom gave him looks back.

Simon gently walked up to his sister.

"As you told Zoe, nothing in this is anyone's fault River. But if you can tell me something that will help her—"

"It's my fault," River replied, still quiet. She looked up at her brother, her eyes intent. "I mean; I know her falling down is not my fault. But . . . I could 'see' what was happening. Until now, I didn't recognize it for what it was . . . but maybe I should have." River looked back over at Lady's form. "If that's true . . . then it's my fault that I didn't realize what was happening to her, didn't realize and tell her why she didn't remember some things which should be so important to her."

Simon nodded, waited a beat, then asked, "and what is happening to her River?"

His sister looked back to her brother, taking a moment to look at Zoe and Book, to include them in her words, "we all know . . . that she forgets. We also know that there are times when something happens to her and she remembers—and now it seems that she forgets what it was she remembered—" River looked at Lady, the girls eyes were saddened— "it just made me realize . . . but when that happen, when she remembers and then forgets, it's like a door opens in her mind and . . . things . . . thoughts and memories come out—" she looked back to her brother, suddenly upset— "but when that door closes, it pulls all those things that came into her . . . back out. _That's_ why she doesn't remember such important things."

"You know," Book suddenly said in a musing tone, "I wonder?" He realized that he suddenly had everyone's attention. He looked 'caught/embarrassed' for only a moment before he went on with his thoughts for all to hear.

"It just occurred to me; did any of us ever _ask_ Lady a question about her husband or otherwise inquire as to the subject _after_ she made one of the statements about it?" He took in the eyes around him, "I mean, I know I _thought_ a couple of times to ask her more about her husband being a 'Ships Master' and all but . . . I guess I just never found the right moment to do so." He looked to Zoe, "if I'm right, it would that mean that no one else—given what River just said about Lady 'forgetting what she remembered'—has asked her about her husband until the moment you did."

Zoe nodded, "that's why it was such a shock to her maybe?" She then shook her head. "To think that none of us thought to ask her anything about her husband—I can't believe that Kaylee wouldn't have done that at some point."

Book smiled gently, "Kaylee would have been worried about hurting Lady if she asked the question the wrong way." He looked to River, "we all know how much she cares."

Simon nodded at this—thought for a moment—nodded again as if he had made a decision. He then turned to his sister, taking her hands and telling her, "River, I'm afraid that being woken up in the middle of the night has given me a pretty good headache. I need to take an analgesic, but I don't want to do so on an empty stomach. Can you go up to the Dining Area and make me a sandwich?"

River . . . kind of blinked. Then she looked . . . confused . . . then a look of concentration—

"You're trying to get rid of me."

Simon reached around, gently turned her around, gently moved her toward the door. "I would never do that to my favorite and only sister. But if I'm going to puzzle this problem out, I need to have a clear head and you can help with that."

River reluctantly allowed herself to be pushed out. Once out in the Lounge area, she looked back at Simon over her shoulder, the look on her face saying, '_I know you're lying to me_' even as she said in a neutral tone, "bread, cheese, mayo, touch of mustard, two slices of ham, three pickle slices." With that, she turned and headed toward the ladder.

Simon came back into the Infirmary, bobbing his head down to watch her progress up the ladder through the windows. Finally he turned to Zoe and Book, "I wish I had an idea just what she can read and what she can't." He got sympathetic looks from both the Shepherd and the First Mate.

Then the Shepherd asked, "do you think you can puzzle out the problem Doctor?"

Simon kind of shrugged. "Like River's . . . problems . . . this is far outside of my specialty." He crossed his arms, looking down at Lady, "But again, like my sister, I'm been trying to do some quiet research through The Cortex." Another shrug. "I can't find anything with which to 'treat' her memory loss. All the treatments involve herbal remedies and/or narcotics—none of which we have but at the same time, given her reaction to the narcotics I gave her upon our original discovery of her—" He left the remainder of that statement off but both Zoe and Book understood.

"But," Simon went on, "as far as the ins and outs of her particular amnesia itself—I think I'm beginning to see a pattern." He looked at the other two. "I wish to keep my sister—unpolluted with any concepts that we discuss. That is why I had her step out. Something happened with my last new attempt at medication and I have yet to discover why." He momentarily stared off into space as if trying to figure out, "the new medication didn't maintain at a stable level. Even when I increase the dosage, she seemed dampened for a while then suddenly she was energetic again—sometimes only a couple of hours after her dose." He shook his head to clear it going back onto subject with, "until I get things figured out, I don't wish her to be present when possible diagnoses of cases other than hers are being discussed." His look told Zoe and Book that he expected them to respect his wishes.

"So what kind of patterns are you seeing here?" Zoe asked, nodding toward Lady wishing that Simon would stay on the subject at hand.

"Given what my sister just said, both of you were aware that she," Simon asked with a nod toward Lady's form, "told the Captain during their . . . discussion about her joining the crew that she had 'blanked' during the . . . episode in the Dining Area involving Jayne."

Shepherd and First Mate looked at each other—then looked back to the Doctor—Book answering for the both of them. "No, I don't believe that we were aware of it at the time." He glanced at Zoe then back at Simon. "I think we became aware of it at some point but I personally don't remember when that was."

Simon nodded. "Yes she did have a case of that 'forgetting' that River talked about. But that aside I wanted to ask the both of you to remember that incident and how—if you remember—her accent changed during her confrontation with Jayne; how strong it became and the types of wording she used when she was . . . chastising Jayne."

Again his 'audience' again exchanged looks. This time however, both of them gave him nods.

"I think," Simon went on, "that those two factors are a part of what River means when she says that 'memories and thoughts' come out 'when the door is open' and retreat when that 'door' in Lady's mind closes." He cocked his head as he looked at Lady. "Something happens when Lady 'blanks'. Apparently her memory during those episodes becomes . . . clearer . . . more accessible to her, hence the changes in her accent and vocabulary along with the memories of her husband. But then the blank period passes; she comes out of it and she doesn't retain the memories she accessed when she was in it." He shook his head sadly. "Everything that she has 'remembered' during those times has been forgotten by her. As River said, those memories were pulled back thought the door—whatever that means— and neither Lady or nor all of us on board were aware that it was happening other than my sister and she did not recognize it for what it was."

He looked over at Book and Zoe. "So, I would venture to guess; in fact it seems to be plain that the Shepherd is right and what you said tonight (he nodded at Zoe) was the first conscious thought that she has had about her husband since we pulled her out of the pod." He looked back to Lady, "like any of the other flashes she's had, prior to the moment you mentioned him, she had no 'retained' memory of him. And I agree with your estimation; that's why it was such a shock to her system." He looked back to the pair, "the question will be now, will she remember it when she wakes up or will she have forgotten it again?"

"And we don't have any idea why this is happening?" the Shepherd asked.

Simon nodded.

Zoe thought a moment before, "what makes it so strange—we don't know why and things aren't consistent—I mean—it was obvious that she was pretty upset during Jayne's incident—that I can understand in as far as her losing her memory if being upset is what does it to her— " Zoe shook her head as if to clear it. "But so much of the rest doesn't make sense. I mean, she lost her memory from the fight with the Independents; from what Kaylee and you said Doctor, she wasn't upset with that until after it was over and she realized that she had 'blanked'. She lost her memory during the rescue of Kaylee from the service crawlway—what would have caused it there? She certainly wasn't upset. The 'flash' she had in the galley, when I said 'Master of the Ship' and she remembered her husband was the 'Ships Master'—that was a clear-out-of-the-blue/run-of-the-mill flash like all of the others she's has." She looked at Book. "I mean, you yourself said the one where she could remember how to cook was almost as intense as that one—as was the one that brought back her being . . . 'Lady' somebody—she remembered intense (air quotes) moments like that and yet didn't remember her husband—_why_ is there a difference?" She looked back at Simon asking, "what else—what am I missing?"

"She lost her memory during the fight in the bar," Simon told them. When the two of them looked at him in surprise he could only shrug. "She told me later—and the Captain told me separately about it. He also said that she was pretty upset about it."

Book shook his head in confusion. "What could the common thread be?" He looked at the Doctor. "You said something about a pattern?"

Simon gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "What we're talking about is the pattern, a pattern of how she remembers some things one way and doesn't remember then another way. It's certainly a pattern and to a GP with a mental health background it may mean something but to me—" he could only shrug. "As far as how or why they're happening—" He shook his head. "Stress, excitement, agitation, seem to do it in some cases, in other cases nothing happens or nothing that we recognize happens—"

Zoe dropped her head in thought. "She said something tonight—she lost it—she blanked— when the one bushwhacker took a shot at her that almost hit her but prior to that—" she looked at Simon, "she said things got . . . 'fuzzy' before that but she still had a memory for them—is that something new, maybe some kind of change?"

This was of course new information to Simon. He thought a moment . . . then nodded.

"So what's the link?" Zoe asked plainly.

Simon started thinking—

At that moment, River came back into the Infirmary—

"Did you want chips?"

Simon look surprised—

Then the figure on the table groaned—

The four of them quickly gathered around the exam table. Just as they did, Lady opened her eyes.

All four of them—blinked. The look in those eyes—

* * *

Mal still had his headache. He had woken up with it about ten in the morning. Despite the rumbling in his stomach, he rolled over and went back to sleep hoping the headache would go away. It had been a rotten, unrestful night and he didn't want to face having a headache on top of everything else he knew he would have to face once he got up.

_So much for hope_ he thought as he kicked the blankets off to sit on the edge of his bunk. He roughly ran a hand through his hair and across his face, trying to use the stimulation to wake himself up.

It didn't work.

He used his in-cabin facilities; the water he splashed on his face finally cleared some of the cobwebs. He dressed wondering just what he would find when he left his cabin. _Can't be too bad—nothin big must have happened or Zoe or someone would have come runnin. Maybe this'll blow over—might get the cold shoulder from Lady for awhile—Jayne will be a handful maybe._ He walked over to his ladder, pushing it open—at that moment his stomach growled.

_Past noon, did Lady make lunch? Probably. She's the type not to take things out on others just cause I did somethin._ He started to climb up _hope there's somethin left out from lunch._

He came up into the forward passageway, stepping out as he pulled his ladder closed. He looked around; things were in fact real quiet. He started down the passageway toward the Dining Area. A late yawn came to him as he did so causing him to rub through the roots of his hair again. This action managed to take him right to the threshold of the hatch to the Dining Area.

Where he stopped—shocked to subzero ice—

Zoe was in her chair at the Dining Table but the top of her body was down over the table, her mouth was open—her eyes were open and unseeing—

It looked like Wash had fallen out of his chair. He was down on the floor behind his wife, staring upwards with open blank eyes.

River was slumped way down in her chair—at least her eyes weren't open.

Simon had also fallen across the top of the table. But his back was to the Dining Area hatch, Mal couldn't see his face.

Book—

Kaylee—

Jayne—

They were all missing.

Inara was still off with a client.

Suddenly the silence on the boat was that of death.

Mal instantly retreated to the edge of the entry to the forward companionway. That move was instinctive for his mind was locked/completely incapacitated.

Then he heard a 'click'.

His head snapped around to the control terminal mounted on the wall just inside the alcove, eyes going wide at what he saw on the screen.

_Someone used the command override to lock down all the cabins. Why would they—_

It came to him. He couldn't get back into his cabin to get his gun. He would have to go to the Bridge or Engineering to override the override—

Who—

A cold sickening horror came to him.

_Lady—did somethin happen? Did her memory—did somethin change her?_

He couldn't go to the Bridge or Engineering. Either location would effectively box him in_ . . . trap him . . . and other than maybe a big wrench there were no weapons in either location as they hadn't replaced the 'hidden' guns on the Bridge after the work done by Belgium.._

Mal sucked in a shaky breath. His entire body tensed as he tried to reach out his feelings—tried to guess or detect—

Lady could move in complete, undetectable silence.

What could he do?

Get out? The ladder to the dorsal hatch was directly behind him. Get out on the hull; make his way down to the ground from there. Go get the Town Marshall.

Get the Town Marshall and his men massacred.

Get to the remaining shuttle. Take off, get away—

Run away—

Try for the arms locker?

_12ga slug or a couple of them center body mass._

Mal steeled himself. The knowledge that Lady could probably stalk him like a tiger going after a lamb was enough for him to want to stay right where he was. But at the same time, his infantry training—

_To stay in place is to die—keep moving!_

He slowly made his way to the edge of the companionway. He took a quick peak, he was relieved—he half expected her to be waiting right there.

He tried to move as quietly as Lady as he came out onto the upper gallery in the Cargo Bay. In a low crouch he moved to the forward ladder down—he would be too exposed on the main gangway even if it was closer to the arms locker. Wincing against the squeaking metal steps, he made it down to the deck of the Bay, got in among the containers. He moved over to the side of one of them, reaching back around—

Cursing—the gun kept concealed there was gone. He glanced across the bay, toward the gun normally hidden over there, the one that he had used against the Captain of the S.S. Walden. But he didn't even think about moving across to check if it was still in place—

_Considerin the time she's had an as thorough as she is, she probably found all of them long ago_

From his vantage point in and among the crates he could see the arms locker. It appeared to be closed and locked. Now that he was where he was—and after the missing concealed gun—the fact that he could see that the arms locker appeared to be intact worried him. He knew that Lady wouldn't miss something like that and even if she couldn't find Zoe's keys, she could have gotten a half dozen different tools to force it open.

Maybe she didn't think she needed anything from it.

Or maybe he would open it and find it empty.

Was she taunting him?

Did he have any kind of chance?

He—didn't think so. As much as he didn't want to—as much as it hurt to think of abandoning all the others with the job unfinished—he had to get out. He was in over his head and he knew it. All things considered, he wasn't even sure that his luck could get him through this one.

He had to get help—massacre or not.

Trying to look in all directions at once, he slid out from among the crates, heading over to the control panel. The inner doors where closed but the ramp was down. He punched the button to open the doors. He took one last glance back down the Bay as that door came open—

The horror of it all just starting to strike him—

All of his . . . friends—

All of the . . . almost family that he had left—everything with the exception of _Serenity_ herself that he had managed to find after the end of the war—

Zoe—who had barely survived the war along side of him only to die here—

Why was he even bothering—everything—everything except _Serenity_ herself—was gone—what could he do—

He reached the edge of the opening Bay door—

The hand that grabbed the back of his neck was like a steel vice.

He instantly started to react—

But he never got the chance.

The grip on his neck lifted him—right up onto his tiptoes—his body had no choice but to go along—it was like his neck was going to be torn right off of his body, that his spinal cord was going to be ripped right out along with it.

"Hand's behind your back mate!"

The voice was cold, hard . . . but unmistakable.

Mal was completely helpless in that grip. Any move he made would result in his neck being broken.

_Maybe Inara—_

That thought was his only hope.

He moved his hands behind his back—he felt the handcuffs go onto his wrists.

She then let him down—but she didn't let go.

"Move."

Using the grip on his neck, she guided him forward—out the open door—down the ramp.

As their feet hit dirt, she released the grip on his neck, shifting her hand to hold him by the upper arm. He angrily jerked against it—but it was like jerking against a steel cable—

The momentary glimpse of her that it gave him caused him to turn and look back in surprise.

She had fashioned was looked like a pretty good imitation of the local deputy marshals badge. It was on the front of her vest—and she was wearing a full collared/long sleeved shirt under that vest. It was obviously she had done it to blend in—to divert any attention away from a man in handcuffs being led through the town streets, make it look as if a local law officer was just doing her job.

The look in her eyes—

Liquid hydrogen was warmer.

Mal let his eyes come back around to his front. He allowed himself to be marched along.

They didn't go far. At the first boulevard she hailed one of the rickshaws.

She helped him up into it, sat down beside him.

Before she told the driver where to go—Mal's eyes snapped down as something appeared directly under his nose. He heard a soft 'pop'—

Everything went dark.

* * *

Mal Reynolds opened his eyes.

It took him a moment to figure out—he was on his back looking up at a ceiling—it felt like he was in a bed. He lifted his head up.

He _was_ in a bed, in a small trashy-type hotel room bed in what appeared to be a small trashy-type hotel room.

To his left was a small window but it only looked out on the wall of the building next door. It did tell him that it was still daylight outside.

He looked down at himself. His hands were tied in front of him, his feet were also tied. In both cases it looked like it was the spare bed sheets that had been used.

He looked to his right—

Lady was sitting in a straight back chair directly in front of the single door.

The liquid hydrogen was still in her eyes.

Mal felt himself go cold, hard, angry, hateful.

"Why?" was all he asked.

"No reason," was her reply.

"How can there be no reason!" he shouted back.

"Malcolm my lad, put a sock in it or we shant be finishing this little chin-wag." Her accent was much thicker—almost boarding on Badgers.

Was this her true voice? Was he now seeing for the first time—

Had he been wrong—had all of them—even River been wrong?

Had his trust in his little voice led to the death of everyone who—

Mal just looked at her, trying to stab her with the hate in his eyes.

"No reason," he told her in a voice that was now choked with too many emotions. "Zoe . . . who treated you like an equal—Kaylee . . . who looked up to you like an older sister."

Lady raised an eyebrow at that. "My my, tell me that it isn't true? Tell me that the spackhead Captain Malcolm 'bossy-boots' Reynolds—"

"What is going on?" Mal's voice was that of death—Lady's death.

"No—no—let's explore this for a tad." Her eyes remained frozen—but there was what sounded like amusement in her voice. "I know that a bit might be that old sense of responsibility—daft thing isn't it—that you had for everyone under you. That I can accept. But to think that a Cold Fish like you—someone who's shut away so much of what it is that makes them human—"

"I'm gonna kill you—"

She didn't look impressed. In fact, her reply bordered on being annoyed.

"Don't be so brassed off. Acting like you're ready to carry the can over this at such a late date is so out of character."

Now Mal's look became even more angry. "You sayin that I didn't care bout my people, that I didn't try to take care of them?"

Lady snorted. "No, I'm not saying that, that is one area you do do pretty well—although you tired so bloody hard to make it look like you didn't give a wank. _That's_ what I'm talking about. The fact that only _now_ do you show the world that you're not completely parky. You couldn't have done it earlier because it would had gotten in the ruddy way of your righteous indignation."

He just glared at her. She looked coldly back at him. The heat versus the cold in their gazes dueled in the air between them for a long moment but there was no indication that he intended to interrupt her again. This apparently satisfied her enough as she was after another moment able to continue—

"Right, well, I'm going to ignore that prior little comment and answer the question from before, as in what is going on." She held up one hand and counted down on her fingers.

"Who—just you and me."

"What—I'm having a knees up with you while you poor dear seem to be absolutely gutted about it."

"Where—just a brilliant little hotel in Foursquare—" Mal's eyes narrowed. Foursquare was a moderate sized town about five hours away from where _Serenity_ had been docked. But by the amount of light coming through the window—

"When—I'm afraid you've lost a day—took you long enough to wake up." That caused Mal to catch his breath. The thought that all of his friends—back in the boat—what their condition must have started to become locked up inside of the boat—

"Why—" at this point Lady paused.

With no emotion on her face she told him, "I'm afraid you'll never know. There is a reason . . . but it's for those who I slave for." She shrugged despite that featureless expression. "Bit of a dog's breakfast I know but—"

It took a moment—it caught in Mal's throat for a moment before he could, "who do you work for?"

"Sorry mate, won't know that either." She shrugged again. "I could give a toss of course but I've got my orders. The thing is that you're to know that it's not anything that you did. Nobody's trying to off you, you did nothing to anyone, you 'weren't in the wrong place at the wrong time—it's simply a matter that this is something that had to happen because it had to happen."

"That doesn't make any gorram sense!" he growled.

She shrugged. "It's not suppose too. It just _is_. Fate, God's will, luck of the draw—any one of those will do for an explanation. I'm afraid that it really is as simple as that. Not a proper do I know but—"

"I will find you and I _will_ kill you."

"Fraid not Malcolm, I'm toodleing home now, jobs over. It's only business you know—no hard feelings."

The rage grew in Mal. "Then just hurry up and kill me."

That got him a cold smile—followed a moment later by an even colder look in her eyes as she shook her head.

"Sorry mate, apparently you didn't get the drift from what I said before. Orders are that you're to stay with the living." She cocked her head at him, her eyes softening just slightly. "Funny things about orders don't you think. Most of the time—I'm sure you remember your Browncoat days—orders would come down from on-bloody-high that made no sense to the jock on the sharp end—and just a bit later—just when the whole muck-about might start to make sense—sha—the orders get changed. The brass just love playing silly beggars if you ask me."

Then her eyes got very hard—her tone going to match. "Then there's the time when it all goes to hell—and those up on high give orders that cut you to the bone! Surrender; withdraw leaving your mates behind; send the greenest group in as the sacrificial lamb . . . or . . . don't leave anything alive—_anything alive_!"

She stood up, stepped over to him, held out her other hand toward his tied hands.

She dropped into one of those hands what looked like a tiny box with a button on it. She backed back away, nodded toward the little box, "push it."

He looked from the box to her, "what is this?"

"Won't know the two and eight until you push it."

Mal hesitated—then in a fit of anger he pushed the button thinking _maybe it'll kill me!_

Nothing happened.

He looked up at Lady. She turned around, moving the chair aside from the door.

"I'm going to tell the boy at the front desk that you're talking a nap and someone is to nip up in an hour to wake you." She turned to look back at him. "At that point, they'll find you and 'set you free' (said with 'flourishing hands').

A moment passed—

"What is going on?" the low-grinding hate was back in Mal's voice.

Lady gave him a face totally void of emotion.

"That button you just pressed detonated a thousand pounds of plastic explosive that was loaded into _Serenity_. Both your ship and a sizeable portion of the docks around it are now a great smoking hole." She then gave him a small, emotionless smile that was totally without any meaning. "That includes the stolen medical supplies that you were going to resell."

Mal stared at her.

And found himself looking into her eyes which had turned into two bottomless black hole—

But it wasn't his body that he saw at the bottom—it was everybody else's—

Her voice was hard, cutting; her accent was back to what it had been before—as if _this_ was the true voice of Lady. "Shit happens! That's the way it's done in this business. Can't take it—get another life! You knew what you were getting into when you took the job! Man up! What fucking fairy tale are you living in! Open your eyes to the real world!"

She stepped over, leaning her face right into his.

"Life is what you bloody well make of it Captain Reynolds. And for people like you and me, people who don't _live_, people who only _go on_—who fucking cares what we feel—"

Mal had never seen so much anger in any person's eyes—

"—because _we_ don't fucking care about how we feel."

With that—she turned and walked out of the room.

Mal really didn't hear her. All of his thoughts were on—

_Both your ship and a sizeable portion of the docks around it are now a great smoking hole._

To Malcolm Reynolds, the next few moments—it was just like those few moments that he stood in Serenity Valley watching the Alliance ships land. Those moments when he realized—

The total, absolute, inconsolable end of all things—


	28. Despair

Chapter Twenty Eight – Despair

* * *

If it was possible, in almost all ways, it was even worse than Serenity Valley had been . . . which in a strange almost-disjointed way it was. While it had seemed that what had happened in that Valley was the worst thing Mal had ever experienced; only later had he come to realize that at the time there had been other factors which contributed to making that moment in his life—he could only call it 'survivable'.

As one of the sole surviving leaders, he had been responsible to gather together not only the remnants of his unit but others as well; to get everyone disarmed, get the wounded treated, get the . . . dead taken care of—

The point was, that after that initial nova of ultimate despair which had come to him with the sight of the descending Alliance ships, he had been able to bury his complete devastation under the needs of others; he had been able to totally shut the door on his sense of loss and betrayal due to the fact that things had been frantic. Many of the younger Browncoats wanted to go up into the hills and start a gorilla war—he had to physically sit on some of them; he had to swallow his pride and his sense of who and what he had been in order to keep control of his people under the smug abuse and self-righteous, arrogant, conceited, haughty attitudes of the 'victorious Alliance officers and men'. He had had to—

In other words, he had managed to stay so busy after that moment in Serenity Valley that he was able to somehow smooth out the blow it had given him over a long period of time. It hadn't made it easier—hadn't made that moment any less devastating than it had been but—

Not even the word that the Alliance had bombed his homeworld of Shadow into nuclear winter had affected him as badly as that moment had, mainly because what happened to Shadow had caused Mal to fight all that harder against the Alliance. He had used the rage and the loss and the grief—the grief at the loss of everything and everyone that he had loved against the monster that had wiped it out.

After Serenity Valley—there was nothing to go after, nothing to take that rage out on. Mal had come to know despair, had embraced it, had it touch the edge of his soul—but due to his responsibilities to those under him, he had not allowed it to pull him under to drown. Others weren't so lucky. He and Zoe had done their best to intervene, but several Browncoats had committed suicide—many by attacking the Purple Bellies hoping to extract some kind of revenge before their final journey into the darkness.

In the end, one day he had looked at himself in the mirror of the 'rehabilitation' camp for ex-Browncoats and realized that he was too far gone. He was alive—what little scraps of his pride and sense of self had come back together and they together would deny him the chance to fall into the darkness after his upcoming release.

He was being forced to live. He hadn't wanted too—but he'd had no choice.

This time—

He was . . . alone. Completely alone. No young Browncoat to jerk up by the collar when they refused to surrender the knife their parents had given them to the mealy-mouthed Purple Belly, no ex-rifleman he could get into the face of with hard, cutting words when they gave out crazy talk about a mass rush of the wire and guard towers—

He didn't have to hold the hand, give the false impression of strength to a sobbing Browncoat who wasn't grieving over the loss of a buddy but was grieving over the loss of their dreams and everything they had hoped, fought and died for.

He had none of that.

He was alone.

Grief filled him.

Despair filled him.

Inside, he was ready to walk out in front of a racing wagon—if he'd had his gun he'd of splattered his brains against an alley wall—

There was nothing to live for—

Except maybe . . . revenge.

_Fat chance Malcolm. Even if you knew where to look for her—_

_Why? Why am I alive? Why am I supposed to live? Who did this? What part of any plan can this be?_

_How could I possibly be so wrong—why do you find it so impossible that Lady was—_

_Is this a dream? Did that headache do something to my mind?_

_This can't be real. This pain—no one can take this pain._

_Lady—I can't believe—_

Mal couldn't believe that he _couldn't_ believe that his senses had been wrong about Lady. That more than anything upset himself within his universe. The fact that something that was so basic to what he was—that it could have failed him so completely.

And he couldn't believe it.

_If that's the case—just what the _ta de me_ is going on—_

He had no idea how long he had been wandering the back alleys. He knew that the hotel boy who had released him from the bed had looked upon him like a madman—but given what that part of town looked like when Mal came out onto the street, he could understand why no questions had been asked.

It was such that he was risking suicide of sorts if he continued to wander these back alleys. Things would get . . . very dangerous now that the sun was going down.

Maybe that was a good thing?

_No . . . if nothin else, you've got to try and get a hold of Inara, let her know what happened. Someone's gonna have to get word to Jayne's mom and Kaylee's folks—_

It seemed as if—his sense of responsibility for those who had been under him was starting to reassert itself.

He wasn't happy about it. It probably meant that he was going to live through this.

That did not make him happy.

At that point, Mal actually opened his eyes (rather than walking around in a fog) and started to look about at where he was. Rather than acting like a ball bouncing off of walls, he started to actually make his way through the groups of people—he started to move toward a main street. From there he would be able to figure out just where in Foursquare he was and how he was going to make his way back to where—

—_a great smoking hole—_

He came out onto a boulevard, looked up and down it to orient himself. He started up it toward what looked like a large plaza—

He came into the plaza—saw what was there—

The shock—was perhaps even greater than what had happened when he had come into the Dining Area—

He started to run.

Mal Reynolds wasn't one of those who really tried to keep 'fit'. His metabolism was just one of those that allowed him to maintain his weight. He did do some weight work in the Cargo Bay as he knew that he might need that strength in a fight. However, his determination knew no bounds. It was that determination that kept him going even when his body was more than ready to quit—

He ran like a wild man, heedless of anything in his path. He went through groups; he knocked over stacked things that might have blocked his path.

He wasn't sure just how long he ran—but the lights were just coming on when he ran out of the end of the boulevard—

He stood for a moment—

He collapsed on his knees as his blood/breath roared thought him.

That plaza—and everything he had seen since—he wasn't in Foursquare; he was still in—

The breath that was howling in and out of him wanted to catch up in his throat as a new kind of disbelief raced through him.

For _Serenity_ was sitting quietly at the next dock down. He could see figures that looked at if they were standing/waiting in the open ramp.

Mal had no idea just how long he was on his knees—staring—not really sure if it was a mirage or a dream—

He didn't remember getting up or walking over—

It wasn't until he was close—until he realized that someone had seen him—and Zoe and Wash and Kaylee and Book and Simon and River were all standing at the top of the ramp as he came up and stopped—

Staring up at them as if they were ghosts.

Afraid to say anything—

"Captain—" it was Zoe—and the look on her face—the look in her eyes—

"We're sorry," his First Mate told him.

"We didn't know what she—" his Engineer told him, her voice holding the same guilt and misery as his First Mate

That was enough for him. He took in a deep breath—the first breath it seemed in hours. He then looked up—

"I need something to eat—"

* * *

Inara was still gone. Jayne had been gone all day, no one knew (or cared) where. The others—

"It's partially my fault," Simon told him in a tone of true repentance.

Mal was sitting in his chair at the Dining table, the remnants of a 'snack' in front of him. All the others were gathered in front of him, River and Wash sitting at their places, the others standing very uncomfortably around the table.

Mal had recovered enough that his self-possession that everyone could see just how . . . careful he was being with his words and mannerisms even if there was a howling rage simmering under the surface. All of them could tell that the rage wasn't directed at them—but that didn't mean that it could be turned their way by a careless word—

If any of their faces or words could be used to illustrate a word in the dictionary, the word would be 'contrite'.

Simon most of all as he continued his explanation.

"Lady was . . . different when she regained consciousness. I—it would be hard to describe to anyone who wasn't there (his hands/arms waved helplessly trying to describe the change). The look in her eyes, the way she looked at all of us, the tone in her voice when she asked; she asked a lot of questions which we tried to answer. She was clearly upset and yet—you know how she gets focused. She finally . . . when it seemed that we finally got it all worked out—"

Simon looked right at Mal, trying to show just how honest he was being. "She was . . . somehow really . . . angry. I don't know why (Simon put his hand on his own chest in emphasis), and I don't know if anyone else really knows either because she didn't let on; that . . . mask she drops over her emotions was working full force." He took a deep breath then went on with, "well, it seemed like . . . we finally got it all sorted out. We broke up—we all went to bed—got what sleep we could."

"This morning, when we came to breakfast—she seemed to have gotten over most of it." Simon looked to both Zoe and Book who nodded their agreement. Mal noticed that he did not look at his sister—he noticed that River was sitting; looking at the table top in front of her with what he could only feel was a 'hostile' look on her face.

Simon looked back to Mal, going on, "we didn't really have anything to do this morning so we all just kind of sat around talking—at some point, the conversation got around to Jayne and the events of last night." He again nodded toward Zoe. "Zoe kind of gave us an idea of what happened then—" he hesitated as if he knew he was at the precipice and really didn't want to go on but—

"We then started to debate what happened—just kind of kicked it around—I think—the consensus among us was that Lady was in the right and that you and Jayne were in the wrong—"

Mal glared at this but refrained from saying anything.

"That was when," Simon went on doggedly, "Lady spoke up—I think it was the first time she said anything during the entire conversation—she said that she . . . needed a way to . . . kind of get back at you for a couple of things. She didn't say specifically what those things were but we all thought—after what happened earlier— we thought had a pretty good idea—" Simon had to stop and swallow—

"That's when—I made the—suggestion about us playing dead—"

Mal's hands went onto the table as if he was about to push himself up out of the chair and come at Simon—

But he—restrained himself—physically at least while the look in his eyes—

Simon's own look got hard as his tone went from defensive to annoyed. "Don't get all riled up about _that_ part of it. I think it's only fair considering what _you_ did to me when I first came aboard—that little 'practical joke' thing you pulled when you made me think that Kaylee had died while I was treating her for the gunshot wound Dobson gave her." Simon's look turned into a glare, "I thought . . . and I still think that I owed you a little payback for that . . . and this seemed to be the perfect way to do it." His look lessened when he added, "so I'll accept responsibility for the _idea_—but not for what happened after that!"

Mal held Simon with his eyes for another moment before looking over to Zoe, "you all went along with this?"

Zoe's look was respectful but unyielding. "As a practical joke—yes—'playing dead' as we did worked for both Lady and Simon all things considered; allowed them to get a little bit of your goat and it was typical of many of the pranks that I know _you've_ pulled over the years." She waged her head back over her shoulder, "Kaylee and Book were against it so they weren't included—"

"But I'll fess up," Kaylee interrupted. "I didn't like the idea," her face and tone were miserable, "I really, really didn't like it but Lady . . . brought up the point of things gettin out of hand and she asked if I—once the 'joke' was pulled—if I could lock the cabins down so there was no chance of an accident with a gun." Kaylee looked at Mal as if she was begging _Serenity's_ Captain to believe her, "Lady said that she would meet you in the Cargo Bay, yank your chain a little bit—string you out until we could all come out on the gallery together to show you that we all were okay and let you know that it was a joke—but—she said nothin to us bout takin you off the boat!"

Zoe went on. "Lady gave us no indication that she planned to carry it any further than what Kaylee just said. And as we all thought it was just gonna be a joke we agreed to do it." Zoe took a heavy sigh. "She must have pulled her plans together real quick. She disappeared into her cabin for a while—" she looked at Mal—"after that, I don't know. She must have been in the service access or something because she told us when you were up and . . . we just did it." Zoe looked at her Captain with sorry eyes, "sir, none of us had any idea that she had intended to take it beyond what we all agreed too. It was just supposed to be a typical practical joke."

Mal seemed to fume for a moment—he then looked to Simon, "did youall enjoy the joke?"

Simon pulled his shoulders back. "Honestly—yes. That's why my back was to the hatch . . . because I couldn't be sure that I could stay 'dead'—keep a straight face." The Doctor's eyes got 'pointed'. "Like I said, I already owed you a payback."

Mal took a deep breath before he said, "I—don't deny that Doctor." He looked at Simon with clear eyed force. "So we're considered . . . even. And as far as that part of it . . . there's no hard feelins."

Simon took Mal's look . . . and after a moment nodded his acceptance of their being 'even'.

There was a long moment of silence—finally Kaylee—

"Captain . . . where did she take you?" Kaylee took what looked to be a painful swallow before she added, "what . . . did she do?"

Mal had told them nothing of what had happened . . . and he felt like keeping it that way. His eyes dropped to the table. "I think—that best be left alone. That is strictly between her and me—"

The hesitation in Zoe's voice was almost a physical thing, something extremely rare for the First Mate but a clear indication of just how upset she was even if it didn't show beyond the remorse in her eyes.

"Was . . . she trying to . . . just trying to get back at you for your being angry at her over what happened last night or . . . was it something more?" She hesitated another moment before, "what I mean about last night was the conversation at the table in the bar, not what happened with Jayne." That brought every other eye in the room (except River's whose eyes were still burning into the table top) first to Zoe, then to the Captain. None of them knew what Zoe was talking about but if the First Mate thought it might be the source of the problem—

Mal gave the thought a moment's consideration before giving his answer in a tone which could only be described as 'surly'. "Don't know, don't care. Nothin that was said could of been worth just what she—"

"At that time you weren't ready to listen to her. After what she did to you—will you listen to her now? R_eally_ listen to her—"

It was River . . . and she was giving Mal a hard/angry sidelong look.

Mal was shocked for a moment—the he started to angrily answer her—

"But no!" River overrode him before he could speak. ""You're _still_ not ready to listen to her—you didn't understand what it is that she's trying to tell you—"

"River!" Simon said sharply. "Please, this is none of your business—"

"She's my _friend_!" River retorted to her brother, her eyes back on the table. "That _makes_ it my—"

But then, Simon was right there, his hand on her shoulder, speaking to her in a quiet yet urgent tone, "River, please—this is not the time or place and it's not your argument even if she's your friend. What Lady did was wrong—"

"How can _you_ judge her—"

"River!" Simon's tone was now stern, commanding his sister to retreat from the battle. She angrily subsided, a hurt/surly mood coming over her. Simon looked up at all the others . . . who were looking at him with sympathy. He mouthed 'sorry' as he sat down next to his sister in order to keep a closer hold on her.

There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence.

"Was she . . . trying to tell you something Captain?"

Mal cast a most unfriendly eye toward the Shepherd . . . who absorbed the hostile look as if it wasn't there. In the same most neutral tone, the Shepherd went doggedly on.

"I think all of us believe that Lady never does something without reason—usually a well thought out reason even if it might not be something that we personally understand. If in this case, there was a prior conversation that . . . did not go well for the two of you—"

"Shepherd," Mal's tone was just short of deadly, "why don't you follow the same advice that the Doctor gave his sister. What passed between us had nothin to do with any of you."

The Shepherds look had gone cold in a way that directly contrasted just how hot the Captain's gaze was getting. "Then allow me to—purely for the sake of conversation you understand—give an example of what might have happened between two parties earlier tonight. There was an argument and someone (Book didn't say who that 'someone' was but his tone made it clear that it was Mal) was less than . . . receptive toward an opposing viewpoint. The argument broke apart without the conflict being resolved. One of those parties just might be the kind of person who dislikes such an unresolved issue so they . . . rightly or wrongly took to some kind of an extreme measure to make some kind of point to—"

"Enough," Mal pronounced. His look at the Shepherd was enough for Zoe to be thinking to walk between the two of them breaking the eye contact.

"My point Captain," Book clearly wasn't backing down, "is that as things stand right now, the potential for violence exists if Lady should come back aboard this vessel. All I'm trying to say—even if you can't see it at the moment—is that Lady would not do something like this if she didn't have an excellent reason for it. Unlike others, she doesn't strike me as the type to play 'practical jokes'—

Mal came up onto his feet—

"What she did was no joke Shepherd. It—" he managed to stop himself. He would not admit to others what had happened to him—not now—not ever. After another moment he was able to go on with, "I don't give a gorram about whatever her reasons for it were—ain't _no_ reason why she should have done somethin like . . . what happened . . . to anybody."

"So you can do it to other people," River growled, "but if other people do it to you—"

"River!" Simon _hissed_ at his sister as she started that sentence. When that didn't stop her—as she went on speaking—he finally had to give her a little shake which finally stopped her at the 'you'.

"Be at peace little one—what your brother said earlier is right, this is not your battle."

Mal whirled up out of his chair—hand reaching for his gun—

Which was still in his cabin.

Lady was leaning against the outside part of the Dining Area hatch.

Lady—

She had gotten rid of the long sleeved blouse she had worn—

In fact, she had gotten rid of the top with the cut-off sleeves and collar—she was wearing just the leather vest with all that cleavage showing—which being that she had her arms crossed under her breasts meant that there was a whole lot of that on display.

Not that anyone was looking.

Those watching her might have noticed that she was also once again wearing the leather pants which she had not worn since Mal's . . . admonishment all those weeks prior. The effect of what she was wearing might be a small part of what it was that was making her look so intimidating—

Of course, the vast majority of that intimidation was the liquid hydrogen floating behind her eyes.

Not that Mal was intimidated. Right now he was angry enough to take on an entire boatload of Reavers. He did manage to keep his tone low when he said, "wondering how long you'd be. Figured that you'd have to show up for a final shootout."

She acknowledged the statement with a nod.

"I would recommend," came Book's voice from the back, "that all of us take the opportunity to pause and reflect that no one was hurt in this—"

"On the contrary good Shepherd," Lady replied in a level tone, "I would say that there are several walking wounded from this battle." She cocked her head to the side, her eyes never leaving Mal. "The question now becomes will there be any fatalities before the dust settles." The look in her eyes became sharper as they drilled into _Serenity's _Captain. "And before you have any different thoughts Captain, let me appraise you of a few things."

At that point, she broke eye contact as she came in through the hatch, arms still crossed in front of her.

"Yes, I have to admit that I pulled this together on the fly. After the Doctor made the suggestion (she glanced at Simon as she mentioned him but the coldness in her eyes was absent) all it took was for me to dress and fashion that 'badge' I know you saw I was wearing. I then took a moment to make all the hidden weapons that I have found about the vessel safe." She stopped in front of Mal but she was facing the aft wall of the Dining Area. "This was meant to be an exercise in education Captain. It was done deliberately and exclusively that way. So, despite what you currently might believe, there was never any intent of physical injury involved."

Now she turned her head just enough to give him a sidelong look. "To answer any other questions that you might have about _how_ I did it, it was quite simple. I'm sure that you were aware of that fake badge and how it would allow me to remove you from this vessel and guaranteed a high probability that I would be able to move you through the town without interference from the locals."

She looked back toward Simon and there was a tone of apology in her voice. "My pardon Doctor, but I'm afraid that I relieved one of your first aid kits of a knock-out ampoule. It was important that I render the Captain into an unconscious state as quickly and as easily as I could in order to assure his safety."

Her eyes went back to the aft wall as she went on. "The rest of it . . . despite the fact that I have had no prior contact with anyone on this world, I had a reasonable belief that the rickshaw drivers would understand English well enough that I didn't have to worry about speaking Chinese. And being that I have feelings and impressions that any local 'taxicab' drivers would—for the right price of course—know of the kind of place I wished to take the Captain to with all the requirements that I needed; English speaking staff, a location in the bad part of town where no questions would be asked as far as an unconscious individual in handcuffs; little things like that—"

"And you left me in that 'bad part of town'," Mal grated.

Lady's head/eyes came back over to Mal with a look of definite annoyance. "Allow me some intelligence Captain. I already said that this was an exercise in education. From the moment I left you in that room, I was never more than fifty feet away from you. As it was, there were two instances in the alleys where you were aimlessly wandering that I had to impress certain individuals that you were not to be interfered with." Her eyes narrowed, "there was never any danger to your person Captain. If you had been so inclined to . . . place yourself into a self-destructive situation, I would have also intervened."

"Lady," Kaylee breathed in disbelief, "what did you _do_?"

Lady's eyes didn't leave Mal, "as I've already said twice, I was providing the good Captain with some . . . _education_ . . . although perhaps _enlightenment_ might be a better word."

"Well, I ain't feelin 'enlightened'," Mal growled. "In fact, right now, I'm feelin downright unhappy. Fact is that I haven't been this unhappy in quite a spell."

With that, Lady turned her body to face _Serenity's_ Captain, her arms going down to her sides—

Her eyes making liquid hydrogen look warm.

"In that case Captain, it does appear as if I accomplished what it was that I set out to do." Mal's eyes flared wide, it looked as if he wanted to take a step forward to smash Lady. But she took a step back, waving her arm toward the forward hatch telling him, "with that why don't we have that little 'unfinished' conversation? I do believe that it would do the both of us a world of good."

"I would recommend," Book _stressed_, "that you should delay such a conversation until the both of you have had a chance to take a moment—"

"Shepherd," Lady interrupted with a quiet voice even as her cold, cold eyes were on Mal, "I respect and admire what you're trying to do. But something tells me that I learned long ago not to leave certain things . . . unfinished. And if something hadn't been left unfinished last night, we might not be at this point right now."

Mal's face got harder. "You're gonna blame this all on me?"

Lady shook her head. "No Captain, I would not do that for the fault belongs to both of us. I should have not brought the subject up under the circumstances that I did. You were tired, had had a long rough day, was looking forward to some stress relief in the form of camaraderie—and you had been drinking—which I don't hold against you one bit. I should not have questioned my imperfect understanding of local conditions under such a state of affairs."

She looked to Book. "So you have my apologies Shepherd for not being able to follow your very excellent advice. But this has festered long enough—:

She looked back to Mal, "and should be taken care of at once."

With that she turned toward the forward hatch. "I think the Bridge will be sufficient Captain. With the hatch secured, we shouldn't disturb the others."

With that she walked out though the Dining Area hatch—

After a moment, Mal started after her.

"Sir!" Zoe called after him, the concern plain in her voice.

Mal thrust his open palm back at her even as he spoke back over his shoulder. "Check on us when you think you should Zoe—"

* * *

Mal tried _not_ to think as he followed Lady down the forward passageway. He tried to keep all his senses and feelings focused on the woman ahead of him—

_Her bein someone who can probably kill me with a single hit—_

_I don't think she's gonna kill me—can't see her doin that after everythin else she's done but—_

_In a time like this; I gotta get myself back up on top. I gotta be the one callin the shots, makin things go my way. I have to get my footin back as the alpha dog, the guy in command, the sergeant whose runnin things despite what the officers might think—_

_And with somethin like this, there's only one way to do it—_

_You don't like it do you Malcolm—you never have—but you've always done it when necessary._

_And in this case—it's morein necessary. She stepped over the line—and she's gonna have to know never to do that again._

Mal had always made it a point in the way that he dealt with the Verse that he always faced whatever he was confronting head on—and that what or who he was confronting was facing him as well. Like what had happened in the street the night before, he wouldn't simply kill a man by shooting him in the back—he'd shoot that man in the hip or something to either take the man out of the fight or cause the man to face him—

Then Mal would kill him.

There were exceptions. Like when there wasn't time to do it that way; another was where it was unsafe—a situation where calling his target out would cause someone else to get hurt—something like a sniper about to pull the trigger or a guy with a bomb on his body in among a whole crowd of people—they could get shot in the back without any thought.

Agents of the Alliance and the Feds (like Dobson) could fall into that type depending on the situation. He didn't feel that they deserved his respect in the form of a face-to-face confrontation—their kind he would easily shoot in the back if they were someone he needed to kill. The rest of the time—

As much as it pained him, he didn't kill Purple Bellies out of hand; that would be the quickest way to a new kind of suicide for it would bring all of them down on him and what was left of his. But in a fight or battle with that . . . scum, if he didn't need them alive for some reason or if he could get away with it without that killing causing any new problems down the road, any Purple Bellies life was his as compensation for Shadow.

Reavers; they got shot and killed without a single thought.

The rest of it—

Mal didn't like it—but he would do it—just like he had done it with Jayne after he figured out just what the Merc had done during the raid on the hospital on Ariel. Simply put, he would—when necessary to establish his authority and dominance in the face of someone who was close to his physical equal—suspend his personal commitment to confront things face-to-face. He would strike from behind without warning—in Jayne's case with a very large wrench to make sure the big fighter was down. He tired to be careful doing it; he would never kill someone like that (at least he hadn't . . . yet . . . to his knowledge), but he would do it solely to make sure that he was the one with all the cards—with all the control of the situation and the ability to dictate the outcome.

Just as Lady had dictated his entire 'kidnapping'—leaving him helpless without a shred of control over his person.

_That_ was the source of much of the rage that simmered within him—a rage that was ready to boil over now that he was about to confront its instigator.

Even as he heard River's voice in the back of his head; getting her two cents in before Simon could keep her from going on—

_So you can do it to other people, but if other people do it too you—_

"That's right darling," Mal muttered under his breath, too low for anyone—maybe even Lady—to hear. "The Alliance did it to me once . . . and that was one times too many. No one should ever do it to me again—and I'll do it to others as often as I have to to keep flyin."

It was this deep seated inferno within him that he was in control of his life and that death and destruction would fall on anyone who ever threatened that part of him again. It was a rage that came from the war—and everything that it had done to him. It was a rage that when aroused kept him going against all odds—like it had when Niska had kidnapped him, taken his freedom, taken away the control over his self and life

Niska had even taken away even his ability to end the suffering by not allowing him the right to die, instead 'resurrecting' him in order to undergo more torture.

No one did that to him.

So now he was about to have the same kind of confrontation with a woman who could probably kill him as easily as swatting a fly—

The fact that Lady was . . . well . . . a lady . . . a woman . . . did not enter into the picture here. Going back right to the beginning with everything that the Doctor had said about her strength, her stamina and the strange things about and inside of her body. The abilities at fighting from the incident with Kaylee in the Cargo Bay with the Independents, from the brawl in the bar, the way she handled herself in the gunfight even if Mal hadn't like the way she'd done it. That . . . annoyingly ability to so intently focus and the damn effortless command skill and authority with which she could make _him_ jump. Although he didn't like to admit it; even though he had sort of admitted it to Jayne the night before, he knew that Lady was bigger, badder and now after what had just happened in the last day probably as mean or meaner than he was—he remembered her voice when she said, '_I have been most certainly more ruthless, bloody and insensitive to death than you are'_.

She had _meant_ what she'd said!

And as much as it galled him, he was inclined to believe her. Which meant that he had to regain the high ground above her.

That took Lady 'outside' of being a woman for him. Therefore his natural inclination toward the 'fairer sex' did not apply to her.

So Mal knew that he would have to swat the fly first—

And hoped that he got away with it.

* * *

Mal continued to try _not_ to think as Lady waved him in through the Bridge hatch. She was standing as if she was going to allow him to go by her after which she would close the hatch. Her head was lowered, but it looked like—she wasn't looking at him; it looked like she was concentrating on some really powerful thought.

That . . . didn't quite strike him as right. He would be within easy reach of her as he went by; his back would be exposed as he passed her by. But he allowed the strange feeling to pass. He guessed that she intended to have a regular face-to-face confrontation. If he could only take advantage of that in order to get the upper hand—

Mal came to a stop next to Wash's chair, crossing his arms in front of his chest—

Behind him, Lady pushed the hatch closed, secured it, then made to move past him as if she was headed over to her usual place in front of the co-pilot console—

She walked right by him—she—

_She's completely exposed _Mal realized. That caused alarm bells to sound all though him. Even if she was at angry at him as she seemed, he couldn't believe that she would open herself so fully to a possible attack—

Mal had only a moment—in that moment there was enough time for two simultaneous thoughts.

The first was—

_If she's gonna give it to me, I'm gonna take it._

The other was—

_I wonder if she's just suckering me in and I'm about to die—_

Trying to keep in mind everything he'd seen with Lady, everything he'd been told or described to him along with Simon's estimation of what her abilities, reactions and resistances where—

_You should have gotten that same wrench you used on Jayne—_

He had just enough time for that thought as he threw a punch at the back of Lady's head just as hard as he could. If he was lucky, he could stun her enough to give himself an advantage. If he was _very_ lucky, he could knock her out. Then he could tie her up, set himself up to be able to completely dictate to her from that position of total control—

Mal's fist actually made contact—

Which surprised him more than anything.

He'd more than expected her to see it coming and duck at the last moment—the fact was that she did react to his attack but he could tell that she was late on it so while she couldn't avoid it, the blow wasn't as hard as he hoped it would be. But it must have been hard enough to ring her clock for she lurched forward, going down onto her knees, both hands going out in front of her to cushion the fall, keep her from going all the way down—she was down on all fours—

_MOVE_ Mal yelled to himself as he swept in, coming into her side, using his instep to kick her in the side/ribs—he was still trying to incapacitate her, the kick was meant to knock the wind out of her—but his fear of her getting her feet under her and coming at him full bore cause him to put just as much force as he could into that kick. A gasp escaped her lips as the blow connected—

The force of the blow literally sent Lady flying sideways. She landed heavily with at loud 'grunt', the momentum rolling her back into the aft wall—she flopped over onto her side facing him, her head wrapped up in a shroud of her wild flailing hair—one hand going to hold the ribs he had just kicked, the other scrambling under her trying to push herself upright—

_She's stunned_ Mal realized. He must have gotten the head blow in harder that he'd thought. She _was_ moving, the other hand that had been holding her ribs going down to the floor to steady herself as she pulled her legs in to get her feet under her—but she _was_ stunned; her movements disjointed; slow—

_Move Malcolm—before she gets her wind back and her head clears—_

Lady had managed to get halfway up on one knee before Mal stepped in. She raised a hand to try and block—her vision obscured by all the hair in her eyes—

_Remember! She's not a woman! She's just as dangerous if not more than you are! You CAN'T give her a break! You have to take her down NOW!_

Lady's attempted block with the one hand didn't even come close to stopping his move allowing Mal to get in a vicious backhanded fist to the right side her face—he felt blood from some part of her features spackle the back of that hand as the blow sent her reeling backwards into the aft wall. Another moment of surprise ripped through him.

_Maybe_ he wondered,_ whatever happened when she hit her head on the Cargo Bay wall—maybe somethin happened there to slow her down—screwed up her ability to fight—you've got the upper hand—get in with it!_

Lady almost 'bounced' to her feet in a rebound move off of the aft wall. But it was lurching, unsteady, her eyes looked glazed, blood was coming from both her lip and nose as her cheek was already swelling. Her arms came up into a set blocking stance—

Mal went right in through it, driving a punch deep into Lady's gut. She bent double around it, a loud retching erupting from her mouth.

At that moment—when he realized that he _had_ the upper hand—that he _was in control_—something within Mal . . . changed.

_You feelin it Lady? You feelin just how _fen nu de_ I am! Is this tellin you not to mess with me the way you did!_

He wasn't conscious that it had happened to him. It was like a gate opened and all the anger built up over the prior day and week came together.

Lady was still bent around his punch even as he pulled his arm back out. He grabbed a hunk of her hair at the base of her neck, using it to pull her upright—

_Who the _xing jiao dui xiang_ do you think you are for doing that to me—_

Mal punched her in the left side of her face, a feral smile coming to his lips as he did so. His fist connected with her cheek and jaw, her head rocked back, he thought he heard something 'snap'—

_Makin me think that everythin I cling too, everythin that I have left after the Alliance took everythin else, makin me think that it was ALL GONE!_

He let go of her hair stepping back—blood was freely running out of her nose, dripping down onto her chest where the skin above her cleavage was exposed, her right eye already starting to swell with that cheek; the cut lip was working at twice normal size. He stepped in again, driving another blow into her stomach—a god-awful sound coming out of her as she again folded around his arm.

_How dare you make me feel that way again! How dare you make me feel that my world had ended again!_

He pulled his arm back out. Lady collapsed straight down into a pile at his feet. She retched again, blood spitting out onto the floor in front of her.

_If only I could have done this to some of those Alliance _ou tu wu_ after Serenity Valley. If only I had been able to kick their asses the way I'm kicking yours Lady—_

Mal wasn't thinking any longer. He was running on memories, hard aching memories from hours before—from years before—when he was helpless to strike back—unable to fight back because he was responsible for everyone—

He stepped back and kicked Lady straight in the chest. It hit her squared between her boobs, knocking the wind out of her. She smashed backwards, falling backwards, maybe striking the back of her head against the deck as she crashed down, her entire form wide open to any further strikes that Mal might wish to deliver.

Mal just stood over her, his eyes boarding on madness—

He stood there for a long minute—breathing heavily—_begging_ her silently to get back up so that he could go on knocking her down.

Lady—with a painful groan she rolled over onto one side, then slowly, with shaking arms, she pushed herself up onto one hip. Dribbles and drabs of blood were splattering to the deck—she retched again, more blood ejecting out of her mouth. Slowly, in obvious pain, she pulled her legs around, smearing the blood on the deck—dragging the long trailing ends of her hair through it. She continued the movement until she managed to get her knees under her. Her whole body wavering, she forced herself to come upright on those knees, her features hidden behind the wild mass of hair, much of that hair sticking to the blood on her face; more of that brown curtain glinting where it was streaked with blood where it had been dripped or been spit into it—

_Comeon! Comeon—get up!" _Mal grated to himself, _Every time you get up, I'm gonna knock you down—for every Browncoat that got knocked down and couldn't get up._

The moment he could see some part of Lady's swollen; bruised, bloody face through all that hair, Mal kicked her again—this time aiming for her face—

A face that somehow—was no longer Lady's. It had become—

The faces he remembered from the times when his world had ended before—

The face of the Alliance Company Commander who had taken his units 'surrender' in Serenity Valley; who had watched passively as his men ignored the pain and suffering of Mal's wounded.

The face of the Commandant of the Alliance Rehabilitation Camp with his daily 'lectures' to his captive audience belittling them and everything they had fought for and believed in.

The face of the Alliance Military Broadcaster announcing how the planet Shadow had been 'cleansed' of rebellious forces.

The face—

Mal knew that he was kicking all of those faces as his foot snapped into the face of the woman before him who had almost wrecked his world again—

Mal's mind jarred back to reality as the pain lanced up his leg. He looked—to find that his kick had been suddenly stopped inches from Lady's face, caught in a two handed grip that make Mal's foot feel as if it had just been caught in a steel bear trap—

"I think—that's quite enough Captain," came the thick, slurred, pain-filled voice. "I've allowed you seven hits—one each—one for your ship and each member of your crew that you thought dead. At this point I would call it fair."

Mal found himself staring into two eyes that despite the hair, the swelling and the blood—they resembled two black holes—

With his body lying at the bottom.

* * *

A/N: This comes as a bit of a disclaimer. In the course of writing this story, the information, situations and 'history' used was almost exclusively from the DVD's my son gave me of the original series. From the internet I obtained information on The Verse and it's planets but really didn't go any further from there. As a result, the contents of this story are exclusively based on that material.

However, in researching a point for a paragraph in Book Two where I am currently working, I found a web site containing a 'timeline' with extensive 'filler' information apparently from 'deleted scenes' and the various series of comic books that have been published. As most of these were apparently written by Joss, they can be considered 'canon' for the Firefly universe. Unfortunately some of that information directly applies to this current block of chapters that are coming up. Yes; this is a case of 'didn't do the research' and I readily admit such. However I also have to admit that to go back and make the minor to moderate tweaks that I would have to do to chapters 26—34 are more than I wish to tackle. So I beg forgiveness and promise that I will use the just discovered (07/24/12) information in future chapters as appropriate.

I will remain

Your Humble and Devoted Servant

The Wise Duck


	29. Confrontation

Chapter Twenty Nine – Confrontation

* * *

Those in the Dining Area looked up anxiously as Zoe stepped back in through the forward hatch. To those waiting looks she could only give a negative shake of her head.

"But—" the anxiety in Kaylee's voice was plain, "it's been an hour—"

All the First Mate could do was shrug. "The Bridge hatch is still sealed from the other side. Without forcing it we can't get in there—and I'm not ready to do that—yet."

The full weight of her worry clouded over Kaylee's face . . . but she held her tongue, not quite willing to rebel against Zoe's pronouncement but clearly beyond 'concerned'.

"They're probably still talking," Book said in a soothing tone. "Given the . . . circumstances, I do not believe that a . . . quick resolution would be very likely." He managed not to sigh but he had to add, "It would seem that they have a lot of ground to cover."

"I've never seen the Captain that mad," Kaylee's voice held both awe and fear. "Considerin some of the things that he's done when he was close to that mad, what would he do when he was all-the-way mad?"

"You don't think it's likely," Wash asked, his own tone 'uneasy' even as he stared at a spot on the far wall—both of which clearly conveyed just how nervous he was about the whole thing, "that . . . maybe they managed to—"

Zoe silently pursed her lips, saying nothing.

Kaylee looked at him. "What do you mean?"

Wash started to open his mouth—

"Don't!" his wife told him in low but sharp tone.

He looked up at her, suddenly guilty.

"Why not?" Kaylee asked in an almost whine.

Zoe was pointedly _not_ looking at the Engineer. It was obvious to all of them just what it was that her husband was thinking. Any 'fair' confrontation between Lady and Mal would have ended in mere moments with Lady as the victor and Mal either dead or gravely disabled. Which meant that if there had been an altercation between the two of them—it hadn't been a fair one.

"Useless speculation," the Shepherds voice was gentle, "only raises unnecessary anxiety. We must have faith that they have managed to control their emotions. I believe that they have which is the reason why they are still sequestered. Working out such differences does not happen quickly."

Zoe knew that the problem with that particular scenario was Mal Reynolds. She agreed with Kaylee about just how mad Mal had appeared. Inside of her she knew more than she knew how to breathe that when Mal was that angry—Zoe figured that Mal was as angry as she had _ever_ seen him—that the likelihood of his controlling his emotions was about as likely as him sending the King of Londinium a birthday card. The question then became how much control Lady would be able to exert over the situation.

That meant that it was Lady that Zoe wondered about.

The events of the last couple of days had caused Zoe to realize something in which she and Lady were vastly _different_. Zoe had seen it, recognized it for what it was and acknowledged this one area where they were unlike.

Inside of Lady was a _temper_!

Zoe had never had much of one and what she did have was usually seen by Wash who as her husband was the only one (other than Mal) who had the right to see the parts of her she kept rigorously hidden from the rest of the Verse. As to the rest of the Verse, given her normal stoic bearing, her personal philosophically on life allowed her to look at things either dispassionately or as something inevitable—and therefore not worthy of getting mad over. Everything else she somehow managed to bury deep within her until it faded away into memory and/or the occasional never-to-be-forgotten grudge. Lady on the other hand had an enormous amount of passion inside of her. She somehow managed to convey that passion without making big emotional scenes out of it. Zoe knew that it was the charisma that all of them could see/feel in Lady.

Zoe liked to think that she was passionate . . . about certain things . . . even though she kept a fairly tight rein on just about all of her emotions except humor, sarcasm and the love of her husband. Lady on the other hand due to her being . . . 'lost' ((which was as close as Zoe was prepared to come to admitting that Lady was from someplace else); under those circumstances—even with what did show because of that charisma—Zoe suspected that Lady's iron discipline was keeping a very tight lid on her 'true self'.

Zoe had wondered several times what kind of emotions/passions would such a woman show if she was back where she belonged among friends and family. What would she be like then? How much passion and all the emotions that went with that would she regularly display?

What was she like when she let all that passion out? Passion like white hot anger—and the temper that would go with it. They had all gotten a glimpse of it when Lady had gone off on Jayne over the Merc's stupid comments in the Dining Area. Bits and pieces of it had surfaced over the last couple of days with Lady's standing up to Jayne after the boarding attempt (graphic description of that event courtesy of Kaylee), with Lady's flashing eyes and pointed hot tone to Mal when telling him about her personal restrictions over the use of deadly force, with the clearly displayed 'pissed off' mood Lady had shown her when Zoe had been passing on Mal's instructions about Lady carrying a gun. The slow burning fire she and Simon and Book and River had seen ignite in Lady when she had awoken in the Infirmary early that morning that had turned into a carefully banked inferno as certain questions were asked and answered. After those questions and answers, if Lady was mad at the Captain for the reasons Zoe _thought_ she was—a reason above and beyond the 'unfinished conversation' from the bar—

Zoe thought for another moment about what had been said in the Infirmary that morning. Based on what Zoe now knew and believed, she wouldn't be surprised if the Captain didn't find himself facing that same nova they had all seen in that previous incident with Jayne in the Dining Area.

_And just how likely would it be for that nova to explode if the Captain reacts the way I would expect him to_, Zoe worried to herself.

"Just how long you gonna wait?" asked Kaylee.

"We'll give them another hour," Zoe told them all firmly.

* * *

Mal leaned waaayyyyy back in Wash's flight chair, arms draped on the armrests. His mind had finally managed to . . . dilute . . . into a semi-calm, haphazard whirl that had been both assisted and driven by the pain that still radiated up from his foot/ankle. He had managed to corral the majority of his anger; dampen it down to that of a glowing coal but he was still more than struggling with the fact that he had again lost control of the situation—that he, the Captain of his ship—on his vessels Bridge—which should have been the pinnacle of his place in the universe and the prime example of his righteous authority—had been slapped down like a misbehaving child with instructions to wait in the corner until the adult came into the room to pronounce judgment.

Even though the 'adult' had never left the room—

That was . . . pissing him off no end . . . and it seemed that he couldn't do a gorram thing about it . . . except wait . . . and stew . . . until the other person on the Bridge surfaced from wherever it was that she had gone too.

In retrospect, Mal had admitted to himself that he had allowed his emotions to run away, that his intent as to simply take control and exert his authority over Lady had given away to a rage that had lay within him going all the way back to Serenity Valley or perhaps even the irradiation of Shadow. He had always known that the rage was there; it had long given him the strength to do many of the things that he hadn't really cared to do over the last six years. And the fact that he had given into it didn't really bother him either. It was a rare thing nowadays for him to be able to acknowledge some of what made him what he currently was—but when he did, at least he had never done so against an innocent.

Damn few of the people he ran into nowadays could be considered 'innocent'. The rest he seemed to run into with all too great a frequency. People like Precious when she intentionally set that deal in order to ambush, steal from and probably kill him despite his own honest intentions, people like that one henchman of Niska's who just couldn't get with the program causing Mal to have to boot him into the intake of the running port VTOL engine when all Mal wanted to do was give Niska's humpin money back, Niska himself and his dungeon master with their little games. Saffron with _her_ games—twice. Those Marshall's who had been chasing after Tracey and his smuggled organs—not one of them was innocent—

The woman who was currently in a position of meditation on the Bridge deck across from him wasn't innocent either. So Mal refused to feel bad about his abusing her after she had set his rage off—

A rage that she had absorbed without resistance—

A rage that she had effortlessly stopped when she had decided she had had enough.

Again in retrospect, Mal saw that she had allowed him to do everything to her that he had done. This also caused him to refuse to feel sorry for her—and he was glad that he had gotten every blow in that he had for she had angered him that much.

But now—

His anger and resentment simmered—stoked by the way that she had obviously anticipated everything that he had intended to do right from the time when he had left his cabin all those long hours ago. Was he really that readable, that predictable?

Was he really that outclassed?

Of course he was, he'd known it going in—just as he knew that he had made a newbie's mistake by forgetting it when things went too well.

So he waited like the bad boy he was—unable to walk; when she had grabbed his foot in that vice-like grip, after the few words she had uttered, she had easily and calmly dislocated that foot/ankle with a single hefty tug/jerk. She then violently twisted it—an action which forced Mal to twist about and collapse chest down to the deck as she had held him by that foot, not allowing him to get away—

Once he was down—he looked back over his shoulder—she simply looked at him; those eyes still the black holes that put ice into his soul—

She then twisted his foot again—he yelped in pain—

After that she'd let go. He pulled himself away from her over toward Wash's chair—he reached down to feel his foot—only to realize that she had popped it back into joint. This left him unable to get up to go after her again let alone try to leave the Bridge. It was obvious that she had done it to assure that he would be unable to put any weight on it for quite some time. It was swollen, abused but basically okay. It would heal. But at the moment there was no way for him to try to get at her without risking falling flat on his face from the pain and the weakness to that ankle.

So he sat—waiting—

Which probably had been her intent. For once she had released him, she had completely ignored him. She'd lay down on her back; head tilted back, hand placed over her face/nose/lips until she had been able to stop the flow of blood coming out of the various wounds. After that, she assumed a position of meditation (even if she was still sitting on a good part of her hair as well as the smeared/splattered drips and drabs of her own blood) and she hadn't moved since. She hadn't tried to clean the blood off her face (even the part where she had hair matted into it), her chest or her hands which she had used to stem the flow. She hadn't tried to adjust her position against the ribs that he had kicked and possibly damaged even though they had to be creating problems for her. She hadn't—

—done a gorram thing.

Time had gone by. At one point, Mal heard a noise from the closed Bridge hatch. He assumed that it was Zoe, attempting to check on them. He had almost yelled, had almost tried to hop on one foot over to it in order to release the lock—

Somehow, he had decided that he shouldn't.

So he waited.

Finally Mal heard a breath being deeply drawn—

Making him realize that he had almost nodded off in Wash's chair for an all-too-long day of fatigue.

But he looked over at Lady to see that her eyes were open—

Well, her one eye was wide open, her other eye—the swelling from her black/blue cheek had caused that eye to go almost closed.

"I would think it would be safe to say that the last twenty four hours have been somewhat stressful."

Her speech was 'thick' as in it was obvious that with her bruised, swollen face, it was very painful for Lady to talk. But it was just as obvious that she intended to go on with what she wanted to say.

"That much of it was also unpleasant," she went on, "would also be something of an understatement." It was then that a hint of 'black hole' came back into her eye as she added, "however, the reason why some of it was unpleasant is the primary focus of the little discussion that we are about to have Captain."

Mal felt his own gaze harden but he resisted the temptation to make any kind of a comment. The ball very obviously was in her court.

"Before that," Lady said, taking a moment to look down at the dried blood on her chest and the leather vest she was wearing, "a bit of an explanation might be in order for you to better understand some of the finer points." She looked back up at him, "so please forgive me if some of it is a little long-winded but it is critical I think to our coming to an understanding."

Again Mal refrained from the urge to make a sarcastic retort. The anger at his impotence, his lack of control and the denial of his authority was once again growing but he really wasn't sure where Lady intended to go with all this so he forced himself to curb his usual irascibility.

"The first thing you should know Captain is that I have had several significant flashes in the last day. I haven't yet . . . assimilated some of the revelations that came with those flashes as I have been attempting to concentrate on the ones most significant to current events. In fact I did not sleep last night as I was meditating intensely that entire time in an attempt to clarify and expand upon some of the information that has come back to my mind. And for once I have to claim some success in that area for I did succeed in triggering some additional flashes which cascaded into additional revelations and so on."

Lady took a moment to cock her head from side-to-side in order to stretch her neck, by the look on her face, it wasn't a pleasant experience. It made him wonder what it was that he'd heard 'crack'.

"One of the specific aspects that I attempted to concentrate on Captain was my 'blank' spots. Again, I've had some limited success in at least understanding some of the particulars with the phenomenon. What you have seen here," she spread her arms out to either side to indicate where she was sitting, "is the result of some of that new understanding."

Almost against his will, Mal felt the question come to his eyes. Lady nodded slightly at his recognition before going on.

"I do believe that everyone aboard has come to realize that I have undergone what seems to be an entire regime of various trainings and conditionings in my life. One of those appears to be meditation (again she waved her hands at her legs, still in the lotus position). But the meditation seems to be a part of a much bigger piece."

"What I said a moment ago Captain; about the mediating that I did last night, the flashes and revelations that came with them—they are hopefully going to be of assistance in at least addressing some of the problems with my blank periods. I do not expect them to totally solve that particular issue but at least I have been able to add knowledge to my growing understanding of those episodes."

Mal couldn't help himself. "As if any of that matters. I don't think that problem of yours is any part of my problem."

Lady's eyes (well—eye) flared then narrowed. She then closed them, taking a deep breath before continuing with, "why do you think that I simply popped your ankle in and out; disabling your ability to move when I could have done so many other things to end your attack on me? It is because I wanted you out of service in order to gain time—time to recover from what I was sure was going to happen. That being your assault on me."

Mal growled—but she held up a hand to stop him.

"Yes, your guess is accurate. I did open myself to your attack on purpose for the reason I stated—to allow you a measure of retribution. I believe I already said that I felt that it was your fair due at that moment. But right now we must move past that and address the reasons behind this whole sordid event."

"As if that's gonna happen," he grated.

Lady gave Mal a kind of 'washed out' look. "Surely you don't think that there wasn't a reason behind everything that happened here Captain. In regards to the events in this room within the last hour or so there was most definitely a reason and I am attempting to explain some of that to you."

She held his eyes for a moment. He growled back at her but didn't speak again. She gave him a nod as she said, "to return to the subject, that being my blank periods and the reason why I disabled you in the manner I did—you have to wonder—why I did, what I did, in the way I did it? It might not occur to you Captain but if you would only think for a moment. What happens to me in situations like what happened here?" She waved at the blood on the deck. Mal didn't get it; all he could do was stare blankly at her. After a moment she was forced to sigh and go on with, "that's because after the kick you gave my ribs . . . things went blank. Just like every other time when I'm in a physical confrontation."

Lady looked at him squarely. "Prior to that, from the moment we left the Dining Area things went fuzzy as if I was anticipating the impending confrontation. But after that kick, it was a full-on blankness. But I had anticipated that happening—and for the first time, I took steps to account for it."

Mal couldn't help but give her a sour look.

Lady responded to that with a tired sigh. "I know it is more than a bit convoluted Captain, but I'm sure that at a later date when we are both . . . calmer, you will be able to understand the concepts and ideas a little better. For now I am going to revert to our . . . aborted conversation from the bar as a place to start so that perhaps things might become clearer to you."

Lady pulled her legs out of the mediation position, drew her knees up to her chin, placed her hands on her knees prior to placing her chin on those hands.

"I told you then . . . that I believed that I was raised as a part of a . . . martial clan." She took a deep breath before, "much is still not clear . . . but more has come back to me. I was born on my mother's home world, a planet with gravity substantially heavier than Earth norm but not heavy enough to cause what is called in my universe a 'LargeWorld' physical adaptation—which is less than the more extreme 'HeavyWorld' adaptation. Here in your Verse, terraforming seems to have converted most of your planets and moons to a gravity of something approximating Earth normal. While that is also common in my universe it is not required to colonize an inhabitable planet."

Lady gave Mal a grim smile. "If you think about it Captain, you may well know now where the density of my muscles and bones comes from as well as my strength; inherited from both my birth world and my mother's genes."

Mal wanted to sneer at her, as what she was saying went against his belief that The Verse was the sole home of a displaced humanity—but what she said made too much sense—and he couldn't deny the conviction in both her voice and her eyes that was she was relating to him was the truth.

"My mother was a member of that martial clan—but for some reason she did not go the martial path. It seems to me that she was . . . a member of a diplomatic mission to my father's world; my father if you remember was a politician." She stopped and took a deep breath, her eyes closing before she was able to say, "my father was apparently a politician with enemies. For you will remember that I said I had an older brother and sister." She had to stop for a moment before, "they were murdered in an assassination attempt meant for my father."

Mal kept any emotion from his face telling himself that he didn't give a rutting care about any tragedies in Lady's life. He'd lost a planet and a war—

Lady took another breath. "So, with that in mind, my mum was determined to have me be a part of her martial clan—to carry on the legacy and the line." She opened her eyes, looking straight at Mal. "Training started at eight years of age and I will bypass the few facts of it that have come back to me at the moment and go straight to the point. Part of that training was extensive instruction in the mental preparation for spending a lifetime as a martial fighter; meditation, self-awareness, self esteem, self-discipline, training with dealing with stress, loss, grief, anger—" she stopped, thinking for a moment, "something tells me that I got poor points in the anger management discipline—in fact it seems to me that I was more than a bit of a snit and a discipline problem with my mates during my teen years; something tells me it was a reaction to that . . . 'split life' that Zoe was speculating on for me in the bar."

Lady gave him a grim smile. "All I can say in addition to that was that the poor marks I got in managing my anger were balanced by my use of that same anger in controlling and developing my eagerness, focus, concentration and aggressiveness."

The smile vanished. "But I digress. The point is that I received intensive, in-depth training in dealing with all the mental ramifications possible within the existence of someone who could spend their entire life potentially in battle with all the associated effects such a life would exert on ones psyche. I must also stress that I received all this training while I was still growing up so one must be able to see just how deeply it could reach into one's self and effect ones being."

She reached up with one of her hands, starting to gingerly pull some of the strands of hair caught in the blood on her face free. "We now shall jump ahead a couple of decades. I was able to ask a few pointed questions the day before yesterday of Wash and Kaylee after the incident with Jayne and those interesting fellows who tried to use him as a hostage to get your 'stolen medical supplies'. Several of those questions involved Jayne himself and why he is referred to as your 'fighter' while he is in fact no more that a mercenary. From there, I was able to learn what Wash and Kaylee knew of mercenaries here in your Verse."

Her head came down slightly, her eyes becoming cold hard points. "In our aborted conversation within the bar Captain, although the word was never expressly used, I would hope that you did realize from several things that I said, the foremost being my comment about how I 'have participated in many wars and that I have been on both winning and losing sides', that for many years, I too was a mercenary." She waited—her hard eyes watching his hard eyes.

Mal didn't want too, but to keep things moving he gave her the slightest nod of his head—even if he had to admit to himself that he hadn't made the connection at the time and really didn't care to make it now.

"There is however," Lady went on once she received his acknowledgement, "a huge difference. Apparently if I am to understand correctly, your 'The Verse's' Union of Allied Planets which you refer to as the 'Alliance', has required the registration of 'mercenaries' for only a short period of time—since the end of your Unification War in fact, and that is all that is required is that they are forced to register. In my universe, the 'Galactic Alliance' also requires the registration of mercenaries—and much more."

"Your mercenaries are simply 'listed'; recorded by the government. Beyond that, they are unorganized and untrained except what each individual—such as Jayne—manage on their own or whatever training they received while a part of one of the factions involved in your Unification War." Lady gave Mal what could be called an 'apprising' look. "My interpretation of this is that your Alliance apparently does not want organized 'units' of mercenaries who have received formal training in arms and military style tactics due to the threat they represent against your Alliance if they should organize at a later date. The reason why they are required to register is simply to identify them and obtain as much information as possible should those mercenaries come to the attention of the Alliance as a potential threat later on. That stored information; home planet, family members and so on can be used to located, coerce and if necessary arrest that registered mercenary to keep him from becoming a threat to your government at a later time."

Mal had never given this any thought before and despite everything else it got his attention. He had thought that the merc registration was simply the Fed bureaucracy doing what it did; attempting to get its fingers into every little thing. He had never thought about _why_ that might be done and what Lady was saying made all too much sense.

"Things in my universe are very different," Lady went on. "First of all, there is only _one_ way to legally be a mercenary within the lawfully settled portion of my universe and that is to be a member of the Mercenary Guild and there is only _one_ Guild, not a hodgepodge of competing groups with different impressive sounding names. That Guild controls everyone within it under comprehensive compulsory rules and regulations covering every aspect of being a mercenary right down to a retirement pension."

She gave a smile without humor. "Now that doesn't mean that there isn't just _one_ mercenary unit. There are in fact I believe that there are somewhat more than a _thousand_ of them, most of them with impressive sounding names that operate under the authority of the Guild. The distinction is that the Guild breaks them down by ratings and ranks. There are two primary filters; type—as in are they ground army, air corps, space navy or various combinations thereof; and the second ranking is by cost/training/ability—that going from the poorest cannon fodder which is simply called 'militia' on up through the various rank levels to the 'elite' class who command impressive abilities and resources at an equally impressive cost to whomever hires them."

Lady stopped to concentrate on an especially 'stuck' piece of hair for a moment, giving the blood in it a disgusted look when it came free before going on with—

"Now armed with that background information Captain, I will tell you that if you enter the ranks of my universes Mercenaries, once you manage to climb up to the 'excellent', 'outstanding' and 'elite' levels, you receive additional experience in mental conditioning—conditioning against capture and/or interrogation—things such as that. That conditioning takes the form of deeply intensive narcotic/hypnosis techniques that implant . . . 'triggers' within your psyche that activate various physiological and/or mental responses to specific events encountered. Some of those responses are automatic and self-starting, others are by a conscious 'command' the user has been conditioned to perform—which is why it is called a 'trigger'. Some of the reactions and responses can be activated by either method—"

Mal was—if he was to believe Lady—appalled! For anyone to allow someone else to mess with a person's very essence was beyond insane to him—

She waved one hand past the side of her head. "In regards to what is implanted within my mind, in mediating last night, several of those 'triggers' came back to me. There was one routine in particular that I was seeking and I used it here today. The moment you passed me by as you came onto the Bridge; while it appeared that I was simply waiting for you to pass in order to close the hatch, I was in fact 'triggering' the response. It caused me to place a forceful 'suggestion' in the forefront of my mind which told me that I had to create the conditions in order to be able to affect a mental recovery state after the end of the conflict. Such training is put in place should a mercenary of my galaxy come under a form of psychic attack; as where I am from . . . devices exist which can do just that. But here, in this time and place, I triggered the response as I knew that I would need time and space to recover from _your_ attack. Hence the reason why I ended the conflict in the way I did."

Now Mal's eyes widened ever so slightly. _That_ was the reason why she had looked so distracted when he had come onto the Bridge past her. She was . . . turning on some kind of programming in her brain?

He shuddered at the thought.

Lady took another deep breath before, "a little more simply said Captain, was that I told myself that I was to create the conditions in order to meditate after the fight was over. The meditation was needed to both control my anger as well as calm myself; both factors needing control to accelerate my coming out of the 'blank time' to the point where I was once again 'aware' of my surroundings." She nodded at him, "at the same time I needed you conscious and coherent. So the best thing for me to do was disable your mobility for the period I needed to recover."

She blew a tired breath up past her nose causing the multiple strands of hair which were still dangling across her forehead to dance in that breeze. "It took longer than expected and I should apologize for that—but I won't. I didn't correctly anticipate the . . . level of pain you were able to inflict on me—I think you broke at least one rib. So calming my agitation took longer than I planned." Another deep breath (with a wince of pain) before, "at the same time, I was making a strong attempt to recapture everything that had happened during the blank time back to my memory."

Lady opened her eye to look at _Serenity's_ Captain. "For the most part it worked. The disadvantage is that the 'trigger' takes more than seven seconds of fairly intense concentration to activate so it's not something that I can normally do in a spontaneous incident."

Lady stopped 'fiddling' with her hair, bringing a most direct look back toward Mal.

"Now . . . the point of all this Captain. All this exercise in meditation and mental awareness and conditioning has allowed me to—only recently—gain access to not only some of my still lost memories but some of the other memories that I apparently have 'remembered' while I was in one of my 'blank' periods only to forget them again once that period of blankness ended."

At that point, her eye 'narrowed' . . . and her tone got very cool. "In addition Captain, I will tell you that more of what I said or did during the blank periods I have had on board were brought back to me in a very intense conversation with Zoe, Book, the Doctor and his sister this morning."

Lady then cocked her head, giving Mal a cool, intense look as she told him, "that part is very important to our current conversation Captain so if I may enquire, did you completely understand what I just said and appreciate its significance?"

Mal narrowed his eyes. There was . . . something about how she was going about this that he didn't like (other than the whole thing anyway) but he couldn't put his finger on it. He tried to stall for some time. "Things you . . . remembered that you said when you were doin some of your blank stuff? What are you talking about?"

The coolness in her eyes went cold. "Come off it Captain, don't try to slag me off. The Doctor, his sister, your First Mate, the Shepherd, they all provided me with their versions of events regarding my 'blank' periods of which I was not aware of in which I made some very important statements or comments. Even if you weren't there, I _know_ that you aren't dense! Given what I just said, you know that they reveled to me what has been happening—what all of you saw and heard when I was having one of my blank times."

Mal's eyes were still narrowed. Instinct was telling him that this was dangerous too him—but considering current circumstances he couldn't see a way to avoid it—not that he wanted too. He was still in a fighting mood after all.

"So?" was his 'could-care-less' reply. "What's that got to do with anythin?"

The coldness in this eyes flowed into liquid hydrogen. Lady's voice was equally cold. "I'm sure if you put your mind to it Captain, _something_ would come to you."

Heat flared in Mal's eyes. "You callin me a liar?"

An angry edge came into her voice as she told him flatly, "if this is the way you wish to handle it Captain Reynolds then so be it. _Yes_—I am calling you a liar!"

Mal considered for a moment, yes—like his feelings about face-to-face confrontations, he normally took his honesty and integrity very seriously . . . except to Feds and Alliance minions and people like Badger and Precious and a whole lot of other folks with whom he would lie through his teeth without a second thought. But people who mattered to him—

Inara flashed though his mind—wasn't everything they had of recent been nothing but one big lie—?

"Just in case and in order to be very clear," Lady told him with a dangerous tone, "let me refresh your memory Captain. I will even go as far as modifying the parameters—saying that you didn't lie—but that you _did_ withhold information from me that might be very important to me."

"I ain't never—" Mal started—

The memory of Zoe's voice—_speaking of truth, did you ever tell her what the Marshall on Beylix told all of us—did you ever tell her that she injured that one Scrapper so bad that he was gonna die?"_

His mouth snapped closed. For a moment it looked like steam was going to come out of his ears. He felt like the bad-little-boy again being talked to by his mom before being sent to his dad for a whipping.

"Didn't think it was somethin you really needed to know," he told her in a surly tone, angry at himself that he couldn't look at her when he said it.

Now it was Lady's turn to narrow her eye. It actually went to a slit—

Mal had to look back over to her—he could _feel_ the intensity of her look. It almost startled him.

It did startle him when Lady spoke, for her tone of Command was enough for him to have visions of that first Drill Sergeant—

"We seem to have a disconnect Captain—for I cannot believe that if we are talking about the same thing that even _you_ would think that what _I_ am talking about would _ever_ be classified as _unimportant_. So that we may be clear as to our respective thoughts, what are _you_ telling me about?"

Mal looked at her—not liking her tone one bit—deciding to go ahead—not caring about just how she might take it.

"I'm talking 'bout that bar fight back on Beylix—'bout how the next day the local Marshall met us at the gate to Belgium's place and told us that one of those _sha gua's_ that you knocked down was gonna die from the way you cracked his head open on the floor."

Mal felt . . . satisfaction at the shock that came to her face. It only lasted a moment as her eye again narrowed, the anger/coldness returning. In fact—after a moment she had to close her eyes. It looked as if she was struggling with her composure. Mal felt—

It took him a moment to realize that he could _feel_ something akin to—a killing rage coming from her. He felt his insides tighten up—but his own rage still burned hot within him—enough where if he could stand he would have stepped up and gotten into it with her even with the knowledge that he would most certainly loose.

Her eyes were still closed when she grated out—in the tightest voice he had ever heard her use—

"I think . . . that it is time for you _enlightenment_ Captain."


	30. Oath

Chapter Thirty – Oath

* * *

Lady got up onto her feet, her movements stiff and sore; she was obviously favoring the side where Mal had kicked her in the ribs. She slowly moved over—slipping past the handrail into the area in front of the co-pilots panel—

She turned to face him, arms folded under her breasts, her bruised/swollen/bloody features frozen in that emotionless mask that she could achieve so well—

"How did you feel Captain, when I walked out of that hotel room earlier today—"

"You _yin dao_—!" Mal shot to his feet—tried to take a step around the pilot's panel only to half collapse against it as the pain lanced up his leg—

She didn't react at all to his stumble for her look was _focused_, her tone that of liquid hydrogen, icicles dripping from her words, "at some point in time you may have a moment to soberly reflect on what happened earlier today Captain. It may occur to you then just how and why I was able to come up with a concept and a plan which one could say was tailored to be as forceful and striking to you personally as what you perceived. It may then be suggested to you what it is about _both_ of our personalities that allowed me to formulate and then realize just what effect the combined loss of your 'family', your freedom, your ship and the apparent betrayal that brought all those would occur in that set of circumstances which would allow me to use that to slap you upside your bloody spackhead in order to get your attention and provide both your education and enlightenment—

He managed to push himself upright with his arms on the panel—

Mal's white hot eyes met the space-cold ice expression under all the blood and bruising—

"So allow me," Lady then said to him, "to _tell_ you how you felt Captain. For as I said, such feelings are something which we have both experienced and therefore know well. And while words cannot adequately express those feelings, if descriptors are used—"

"Devastated—" her tone changed to match the word. "Overwhelmed, swept away, traumatized—but even those are but pale approximations of what you felt."

Mal managed to growl as the pain slowly subsided in his leg. He looked up at Lady, ready to shout at her that he didn't give a—

There were tears behind her eyes. She was refusing to let them flow but he could see them there nonetheless—

"Where did that leave you," she went on, "it left you hollow, empty, without anything to live for, all motivation and desire to exist completely wiped away—"

Despite his rage, despite his pain—Mal could _feel_ her pain—

And what both startled and frightened him—was that he could feel—that he _knew_ that her pain mirrored his—that hers came from something in her past just as terrible, just as devastating as his. '_Which we have both experienced and therefore know well'_ is _what she said a bit ago _he thought for a moment._ As if she—_

"If I understand correctly Captain, such an event has happened...twice before in your life." Lady was somehow keeping herself from becoming emotional—but it was taking an incredible effort—only the eye—the lurking tears— "I have managed, through talking to several of those aboard along with Kaylee's assistance via your Cortex system, to gain some of the details about both the Unification War and your role in it. Using that as a basis, I hope that you will be able to understand that I, as I have just mentioned, have more than a good idea just what it was that you went through under that extreme condition."

"Then how in the gorram hell!" Mal shouted at her, "Could you do that to me again?"

Lady took a moment—as if she was bracing herself for something hard—

"I—don't know if I can make you understand Captain—but I intend to try. In order to start—we have to go back to the conversation in the bar the night before last—and how we did not conclude that conversation and the issues in it that are a barrier to our understanding each other."

Mal thought a moment—then growled, "you mean—about how some _liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze_ used an 'oath' to justify what they did as just bein a part of their job."

"There's oaths and there are oaths Captain," was Lady's tired reply. "And yes, many, many times in history have oaths been used as justification for ignoring personal responsibility." Her head dropped. "In my case, the oath I gave to the Mercenary Guild units in which I served held me to stand by and watch while atrocities were committed." Her eye snapped up, "One of the first nightmares to come back to me was when I was a part of a starfighter unit flying cover for the ground pounder element of a completely different mercenary group. Our briefing was that the grounders were merely to accept the surrender of and occupy a fairly large town. Their true orders—" her tone became hard as steel with remembered agony/anger—"were to kill every single man, woman and child in that town to set an 'example' for the rest of the planet. Our patron, the man who hired both units ordered this—and did not inform our...the Master of my unit of his intent." Her head dropped again. "My units Master protested but we were stuck in the contract." Just her eyes came up, "as we, though our Master, were held to that patron by the sworn oath given."

Lady took a deep shuddering breath with closed eyes. "With so many mercenary groups in my universe, competition for work is worse than intense especially given what the cost of raising and maintaining a modern mercenary unit is without government or corporate support. The Masters of the units try to only take jobs that fit the particular ethics of their unit—and I'm sure Captain that you can believe that the level of ethics runs right across the entire board from units that respected and observe all the various treaties and conventions that go all the way back to the Geneva entry on what you call Earth-that-Was to the 'kill then all and let God sort 'em out' type." She sighed before saying, "of course the 'kill 'em all' types; they knew that such actions didn't apply to other mercenaries of the Guild, only against everybody else they came into contact with. That was one of the rules that the Guild stringently enforced."

Lady's head came back up; Mal felt surprise when he was that her eyes held what looked to be an appeal in them. "I beg you to understand Captain, that I would only join a unit that had high ethics and standards—or," her head dropped again, "at least would normally profess such ethics and standards at the time I joined them." There was something in her tone—something that triggered a memory within Mal—

"That's what you meant," he was surprised at himself that his voice was so 'normal' despite the rage he was feeling, "in our talk here on the Bridge when you said somethin 'bout...persons in authority not bein honest with you."

Lady nodded, with a momentary look on her face that told him that she was glad that he remembered that conversation. Mal considered this as—_not that you've been totally honest with her. But how naïve can you possibly be—_

"You might think," Lady went on as if she had read his mind, "considering how things appear in your Verse Captain, that such an attitude is more than a little naive—but my universe is huge Captain—even if you can't grasp that concept—leaving room for that naiveness for so many things are possible within a place that vast."

She was silent for a moment before, "anyway Captain, as I was saying, there are oaths and then there are oaths." She took in a deep sigh, "what I was starting to tell you in the bar Captain, was that a trap can be made for a person when one takes too many oaths." She snorted as if she was admitting that something was ludicrous. "I had to give an oath to both the Guild and then a new one to each unit that I joined. The oath to the Master of the unit was supposed to be both binding and protecting, insuring our integrity to the Masters orders as well as protecting us from sanctions from the Alliance should we be ordered by the patron to do something...unpopular." Her eye met his eyes. "That isn't suppose to cover atrocities but is meant to protect the 'troops' if the units task is...something unpopular with a majority of some major political faction—something like taking down a 'popular revolt' or overthrowing a legal government."

Mal's eyes got hard and frigid for the Browncoats could be called a popular revolt. He actually made a 'growling' sound—

Lady's gaze didn't flinch. "Now you know what I meant Captain when I agreed that I was on 'the wrong side' several times. I won't apologize for it for unlike atrocities such assignments were part of the job. I will readily tell you—even if you refuse to believe it—that I didn't care for such assignments but no one can be a mercenary in my galaxy and _not_ get their hands dirty a few times."

"Did your," Mal growled, "_bai chi_ oath's help you sleep at night after somethin like that?"

"No it didn't," Lady replied honestly. "But I'm also sure that you sir are more than familiar with lying awake at night wondering if you did the right thing."

Mal growled again ignoring the truth of her statement.

Lady went on. "I know that all of this is probably way too complicated and ridiculous sounding Captain. Oath this and oath that—very pompous to be sure. At one point it seemed at all I ever did was recite oaths." She shrugged. "With all those oaths, you may assume that I moved around a lot. The last four or five years I was with the Guild I was always on the move. I did that for a couple of reasons."

Mal felt like finding something to throw at her. What he didn't feel like was continuing what seemed to be a useless conversation. He chose not to answer.

Causing Lady to go on as if he had. "Masters who were not honest with me as far as conditions either within the unit or situations under which the unit would work was one factor why I moved so much. The other—" she kind of shrugged, "in all honesty as my career went along I got...difficult to work with." She looked up at Mal and he could see something new in her eyes—a depressing darkness. "Toward the end of my time in the mercenaries I was both in demand and yet...shall we say...unpopular. For I was a royal pain in the ass to just about everyone concerned and yet no one could do the job like I could. Due to my upbringing within my mother's martial clan my abilities in organization and training were on a par with my abilities as a combat pilot. It was I guess...a demandable combination that made me a valuable commodity."

Mal was able to make the connection allowing him to realize just what it was that Lady had been. "You were a troubleshooter," he said. "You came in to take care of a particular problem or to ready a unit for a real bitch of a job—" That caused Mal to—despite his anger—reach another realization as he could now understand just where that awesome and all-enveloping sense/tone/ability of Command that Lady effortlessly used came from. He managed to shake his head. "You must have been well liked." It was said sarcastically and meant to be cutting.

"I was called the 'Iron Bitch' among other things," Lady acknowledged. But she then shrugged it off. "But you can see where despite all that training that I told you about in my youth, the techniques and filters put in place to deal with all the emotional fallout of a military/martial life; even with all that—the kind of life I led under those circumstances—things got—difficult."

Lady at that moment fixed Mal with her eyes and held him—

"Captain Reynolds, I can only hope that you will come away from this part of our conflict with an understanding of two things. The first is that I have been like you were today—at the end of all things with nowhere to go but death. The second is that you have experienced such an event three times now; the loss of you homeworld and everything associated with it when the Alliance of your Verse turned it into a nuclear wasteland, the loss of your war into which you had put so much of yourself and…the supposed loss of your current family and your ship that I subjected you to today—"

Her face took on a look of living death—"as a part of that second part Captain, I hope to make you see that—that same thing has happened to me more than a _dozen_ times in my life...to the point where, unlike you where you simply wanted to die, I had every intention of taking my own life." She took a deep breath, "I had been where you were today many many times Captain, wanting to die. Finally I went to the place beyond that—a place where I finally decided that I could take no more. Honor and pride deserted me. I...made the plans and the preparations and were only awaiting the proper time and place to execute them...and myself."

The hardness came back into Mal's face. "Excuse me for bein a complete and total _ben dan_ but I could care less about whatever happened sometime in your life. Nothin that happened in your life could possibly justify what you did to me."

Lady held his gaze for a moment before asking in a soft voice, "will you not see Captain—or is it that you refuse to see?"

Mal threw out one hand in a gesture of frustration. "Just what the _di yu_ am I suppose to see?"

"The pain that staying faithful to an oath can bring."

Mal was struck for a moment—but then he shook his head. "I still don't—"

"Even if you didn't formally take an oath to your Browncoat movement Captain, your dedication, your feelings, your commitment, your willingness to die for that movement was there! The same dedication, feelings, commitment exists for this vessel and your 'family' aboard her. I do not doubt that at some point in the past years that you have 'sworn' to do something about protecting this vessel and its family from something or to obtain some goal for one or both. Therefore you have taken an 'oath' even if you were not aware of it."

Mal looked at her as if she was slightly insane. Again he shook his head as if to try and make sense of what she was saying.

Frustration now came to Lady, enough for the mask on her face to crack, for it to show through her eye.

"You got angry at me in the bar because you seemed to feel that oaths are only something that those who commit atrocities use to justify their lack of responsibility for their actions. Did it ever occur to you that for others, oaths might keep them from _committing_ atrocities or at least standing up and _taking personal responsibility_ for their part of an atrocity they participated in?"

"What do you mean—? Why would anybody actually—?" the 'veteran' in Mal, the 'everyday grunt' that he had been, the type of person who made up the majority of any mans army, the 'common soldier' who naturally would try to get away with anything they could...especially if it was something that could get them into trouble—Mal couldn't believe what he was hearing—that someone would actually _consciously_ admit to their superiors about screwing something up—and an even crazier idea that taking an 'oath' to accept 'responsibility' in a business where killing was the job; no sane person could do something like that!

But Lady seemed to be quite serious about it. "That sense of responsibility was the hinge pin of the martial philosophy my mother's martial clan placed within me Captain. Every time I witnessed such an event, I would at the earliest opportunity quit that unit, usually at the end of the contract and file an atrocity report with the Guild. On occasion, when I had direct involvement with a possible atrocity, I presented myself to the Guild for judgment—"

Mal's jaw _almost_ dropped open—

Lady waved her hands around as if trying to get him to understand. "Why do you think I was so unpopular within it? Why do you think I could only get employment as a 'hotshot', which was our term for what you called a troubleshooter? Why do you think that I had no friends—not even comrades within it? Why do you think that my _other_ nickname was the 'Ice Maiden'? Because I didn't have any comrades within the Guild—I was a pariah—I was totally and completely alone within it and because of that I _shut down_ all outward emotion and feeling. _Why_ did that happen? Because it seemed as if the entire weight on _everything_ was on my shoulders and my pride and my honor wouldn't let me give into it."

She looked at Mal as if she was speaking on of the _TRUTHS_ of the universe. "I was one of only a handful of the one hundred and forty _million_ beings in the Mercenaries Guild that upheld that part of the Guilds own _oath_. Two units were disbanded because of me, others were put on probation—but those were the great exceptions."

Lady's face was grim—a direct reflection of the memories passing behind her eyes.

"Remember that I was serving with 'excellent', 'outstanding' or 'elite' units Captain, which paid enormous dues to the Guild. I was also exposing situations that potentially could be embarrassing to the Guild itself. Veiled warnings were given from within the hierarchy of the Guild; when I was found in judgment for an 'atrocity' which I reported and presented myself for, I was fined but never relieved or sanctioned—to do so would be an admission by the Guild that something had happened—something that the Guild itself did not wish in the Official Record."

Her head suddenly dropped. "But my oaths held me to that course of action—regardless of the consequences. The pressure...despite all that mental conditioning and the buffers placed by hypnosis—"

Her head then snapped back up. "At the last I _was_ the Iron Bitch Captain. Isolated, friendless, unwanted but needed—that was the reason why the Guild simply would not dismiss me was that I filled a in-demand function—and the problem was that those in the trenches, the pilots and crews I trained for those hot missions, even though they _hated_ my guts, they _sometimes_ understood that I was trying my _damndest_ to keep them alive—that despite the fact that I was an outsider brought into their exclusive club, I was _fighting for them_; fighting both them in as far as their own complacency caused by their self-perceived 'elite' status and their Masters as far as adequate training for the mission at hand. The Masters and their accountants _detested_ me because I _demanded_ proper support functions be in place—I _demanded_ adequate fuel and ammunition for live fire training—training which those Masters and accountants screamed back at me was unnecessary because it was an_ elite_ unit that didn't need additional mission-specific training. I refused to take a job unless those demands were met—which meant that the unit and the master would be out the huge bonus being offered by the Alliance for those very dangerous missions."

Her head dropped again. She was quiet for a long moment. Mal wondered—

"At the end of it all, the last couple of years, the Guild itself was forcing me into units—for specific missions done at the direct request of the Alliance. While the Alliance was very pleased with my success/loss ratio, I began to suspect that the Guild was trying to see if they could kill me off to shut me up—" a shuddering breath went through her—"but that's not what finally did me in."

Lady's head came up, the mask had mostly cracked, she looked a thousand years old. "I was a mercenary Captain. As I said in the bar, I have both won and lost many wars. But I understand that as a mercenary...that the actual wars that I lost were part of the price I had to pay to lead that kind of life...be that kind of person." She closed her eyes, "when I became a mercenary, I had to renounce portions of my personal oaths to my mother's marital clans." She sadly shook her head. "I wasn't the first or the last to do that so there was no stigma attached to it—although my mum was...less than pleased."

Lady then sighed, "what did me in Captain was the 'other' wars that I lost, my battle with the Guild and its failure to live up to its own honor, with the Masters of the units and their accountants over training expenditures, with the corruption that lay under it all that everyone chose to ignore—"

Her eyes were still closed, her mouth was partially opened as if she wanted to go on—but something was stopping her—

"It's a good thing Captain," she finally managed, "that the walls of your crew cabins are so thick." Her eyes opened and she gave him a sad smile. "No one's heard my screams—which is a good thing for some of the nightmares are particularly devastating to me."

Despite himself, Mal gave her a look.

"The kicker of all of them Captain is what I think was the last action I fought for the Guild during that period of my life. I believe that I was a group commander of a space starfighter wing assigned in support of Alliance units. My wingman and I were in the process of landing on the planet's surface due to a system malfunction within my wingman's ship. At that time, a large unidentified armada of warships came into the system. My group under my second-in-command moved to engage...and they were cut off by the sudden pinpoint arrival of a second unknown hostile group. It seems that someone had given our contingency plans to the enemy; they knew exactly how we would react to such an intrusion and planned their arrivals accordingly."

Mal could see Lady's eyes. They looked dead as if she was even now reliving that incident.

"Before we could reorganize or launch additional resources from our carriers, I received a tight beam transmission from my commander aboard our command ship. Our Master—the owner, head and final authority of that mercenary unit; the man we worked and died for under the oath given to him—had betrayed us to the enemy—had signed over to them for an enormous amount of money and power—which of course is how the enemy obtained our contingency plans. _I_ was ordered to withdraw to the carrier. The planet along with our entire ground contingent would be abandoned...as would my air group...and my wingman."

Lady's eye came up to meet Mal's. "I didn't follow those orders—and I managed to get at least a small fraction of our people out." She blinked her good eye—which allowed a single tear to run. "And why did I do that—disobey that order for reasons other than my personal honor—as I said earlier Captain, the ethics of the mercenaries ran the entire spectrum—and beyond that—there are those who were even worse."

She had to stop and swallow against a suddenly tight throat. "The ones who had arrived within the system cutting my people off...they were not mercenaries, they were the private armies, air forces and navies of massive corporations—that was how they managed to 'buy' the Master—and those corporate armies, air wings and navies built their reputations on one single fact. They respected no laws, no rules, or morals...they laugh at treaties. They revered in being the committers of atrocities; they _enjoyed_ killing women and children and those they didn't kill they raped and tortured." She hesitated a moment before adding, "of course those are non-combatants they subjugate for the corporations that I'm referring to. As far as members of the Mercenaries Guild, the armed forces of what is known in my universe as the 'Great Corporations' had a single standard operating procedure...and that policy was refusing to take any prisoners under any circumstances."

Her face dropped, her misery was clear on her face.

"I lost everything that day Captain. I was as bad if not worse than what you were earlier today. And because it was the betrayal of the Master of my mercenary group, the Guild wouldn't even take a 'report' on it." One hand came up to hold her forehead. "I tried and tried, going higher within the Guild with each attempt, trading every single favor I had left trying to find _someone_ who would act, trying with all my heart to honor the Guilds very own oath!"

"You know what they all said Captain!" Mal rocked back at her sudden _snarl!_ "Shit happens! That's the way it's done in this business. Can't take it—get another life! You knew what you were getting into when you took the job! Man up! What fucking fairy tale are you living in! Open your eyes to the real world!"

Mal sat—opened mouthed—_that's the very same thing she told me when I was tied up in the motel room. It THAT what she meant by it?_

Lady's eye went back down—

"Over the years, I came to realize that too many times there was no reason for things. Like I told you in the hotel room, Fate, God's will, Luck of the Draw, the Reason is No Reason, its only business you know—no hard feelings." She shook her head sadly...then looked at him, "making it—like giving the oath had no reason—making the oath only a formality like signing on the dotted line. Not caring about the sanctity of what an oath is supposed to be."

"How is one supposed to be able to hold onto their personal honor when _nothing_ that they hold honorable has any meaning?"

A looonnnngggggg moment passed.

"In both the bar and a few minutes ago sir," Lady said quietly, "I told you that after all those experiences with the Guild and the units within it, I held my own personal honor to be so badly damaged by having to stay faithful to those various oaths that suicide was the only option left to me. All my internal strength and self-worth, the two things that all that mediation and psychological conditioning was suppose to maintain in the face of any event had completely run out. Where did that leave me? Unlike you it wasn't that I wouldn't care if I walked out in front of a wagon and let it run me over—"

She looked him square in the eye when she said, "it was that I fully intended to walk out in front of a wagon." She then looked away. "Except—up to that moment—another oath—one even deeper and more personal—the oath that I gave to my mother's martial clan when I was fifteen—the oath that somehow kept me from walking that path after the dozen or so world-destroying moments that I had already survived—the oath that until that moment, until that final ultimate loss, would not allow me the cowards way out."

Somehow, Mal had to think about it—and those thoughts caused him to ask, "Didn't you say that you had to chuck that oath when you joined the mercenaries?"

Lady smiled without humor. "Even though I had earlier renounced the oaths of my martial clan when I moved over to the mercenaries; there were portions of the clan oath that could _never_ be renounced—and the texts about one's own existence in the face of the universe is one of those parts. We are all held as being necessary to the universe regardless of any transgression we might have committed. The clan recognizes that suicide might be necessary as a part of a mission where vital information must not be subject to capture and interrogation or a kamikaze strike is required to reach the goal—but simply ending one's life because that life is no longer worth being lived is forbidden."

Lady then gave Mal a look that was almost—approving.

"It is obvious Captain that after the destruction of your homeworld Shadow, after your Battle of Serenity Valley—you somehow found the will to live on. You did the same today. I freely acknowledge how rough I was on you, which is why I let you beat me as you did—I deserved it and I do not begrudge you of it. But in the end, you were able to recover from what I did to you. And something within you allowed you to do so much faster than I was ever able to do in any of the cases where my worlds were destroyed."

She took a shuddering breath as if a terrible memory— "You wondered about my...hesitancy toward alcohol Captain—this is part of the reason for it. For toward the end of my period with the Guild, when those world-shattering events happened to me, as my oath to the clan would not let me take that cowards way out; all I could do was find a small trashy hotel room somewhere and drink myself past unconsciousness." Her head dropped as if ashamed. "With each succeeding event, the recovery period got longer. Toward the last it was often more than a week of complete and total drunkenness with all the accompanying degradations that a human body would suffer trying to expel amounts of alcohol being consumed at levels riding the ragged edges of acute poisoning." Her head dropped almost to her chest as she quietly added, "keep in mind Captain, that with my enhanced body, my tolerance is much higher than a normal persons in as far as riding that edge of alcohol poisoning. So it would be a full week or more of such inebriation before I could even contemplate a rational thought that didn't involve suicide and violating the oath to the clan."

A moment passed, then Lady said in a 'dead' tone, "Imagine it Captain. If my 'tab' with the auto room-service ran out, I would have to call to have whole cases delivered from outside. Toward the end, that wasn't needed. I would actually take several cases into the room with me, locking myself in and turning off the daily maid service. I truly hope that you _can't_ imagine the condition of the room when I left. As for myself, it took _hours_ in the shower at the end to make myself presentable for going back outside and in those days I had my hair cut in a 'high-and-tight' military style." Her face/being managed to look 'hollow' as she wondered, "How can anyone claim to have pride in themselves after such an event—after a _dozen_ such events."

Lady's head came back up. Mal took a breath for he thought he saw respect in her one eye. "I can only speculate on what it was within you that allowed you to recover today; to recover so quickly the way you did—and whatever that is, you have my admiration and respect for it."

Lady locked her eye with his—her gaze going so deep that Mal found himself fighting it—for it seemed as if she was going to see into parts of himself where he allowed no one to go.

"Oath fighting oath after failing an oath Captain. There were times where the pain was unbearable—and the confusion as to where I should lay the cause of the pain—even though I knew that I was ultimately responsible to an oath that I had turned my back on and abandoned because I wasn't worthy of it."

Mal could only shake his head. He had to agree that it was too complicated for a man like him to understand.

Causing Lady to nod to him as she did understand that it was complicated—but that it was also a part of what she was.

As was—

"What I did to you today Captain had two purposes. I already told you about the...two things that I hoped you would understand about the first purpose—and that one of those was my desire for you to feel once again what it was that you felt when you lost everything. My intent was not malicious—but I needed for those feelings to be 'fresh' within you—so that you might once again recognize their power and how terrible they can be—how they can turn everything one thinks he or she is into utter nothingness."

""My hope Captain, was that you would be able to reflect on your own experience and then look across at mine. I know," she held up a forestalling hand as he started to open him mouth to snap back at her, "that someone of your kind is...less than receptive in regards to something which happened to someone whom you do not count as a close friend, family member or lover. I did not realistically believe that I would be able to...'touch' you in that way. But what I did hope to accomplish was that you would remember what those times felt like and then—perhaps not today but at a later date when all this is behind us—you would at least honestly consider what my life has been like having experienced such events at a rate of more than four times that of your own life experience."

Lady's eyes softened just slightly, almost as if she intended to ask for a favor.

"My wish Captain toward that first purpose is that you take everything that has happened as a 'whole'. That you review your experiences against what I have tried to infer what mine were like and then put that whole up against what I have told you in regards to the various oath's that I pledged myself to at various times in my life—and understand that for one like me, who started in what was not just a vocation—but a 'life' at age eight with the full weight of my mother's wishes and the history of her clan behind her, and at least try to see my life and all the interwoven patterns of honor and sacrifice that have come with it."

Lady's eyes were now plainly asking—

"All I ask as a part of that first purpose Captain—is understanding. That my oaths were what made me 'me' at those various times—for good and for bad—especially for the bad—and that I do accept responsibility for those bad times and my actions as a part of them. I have paid a heavy price for them and will continue to do so. For even in recent years—when my life has turned around and become something that something tells me I am very proud of—the nightmares from that time of my life still continue—and will do so for as long as I live."

Lady stopped talking. She stood there for a long moment as if waiting for a response.

Mal finally snorted. "Alright—maybe about the oath thing I might—might—be wrong. I ain't seen any such thing in this Verse yet," he leaned toward her to accent his words, "and as of yet, despite everything you've said, I'm still not convinced as to your universe."

Lady's eye went a little wide. Mal used the moment to press his advantage.

"I will maybe—maybe—kind of agree that you ain't from my sky. I don't know where that could be but I don't think it's anywhere near as 'vast' as you say it is. I think that it's morein likely 'round these parts, within the dust clouds. Maybe—I don't know—a migration ship that broke off before everybody else arrived here."

He stopped, stood as tall as he could considering his foot and told her, "but I am sure of somethin else. And that's that I don't give a humping gorram about anything else you said cause nothing—NOTHIN! in your life is anythin like mine." He kind of waved his hands around in agitation. "Expensive trainin, hypnosis and meditation, 'elite mercenary' and some...almighty guild controllin it, marital clan—"

Mal's eyes suddenly _blazed_. "We Browncoats didn't have all that _gos se_! We only had our guts and our hopes and dreams. We weren't fightin for money or some guild or...Master—we were fightin for our _freedom_!_ How_ can someone like you possibly know what we went through?"

"Captain—" Lady started—

"_YOU CAN'T_!" he shouted at her.

The next thing he knew, she had come through the railing around the avionics ladder and was standing directly in front of him on the other side of the pilot's console, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

"Don't tell me that I can't see what you've been through because I can," she came back _hot_! "I've been fighting wars for _fifty_ years under a _thousand_ types of circumstances above and _way_ beyond my mercenary time. I've seen and experience things you never dreamed of in your worst nightmares." She leaned in close to him, their noses only inches apart. "From what little I know about your Browncoats I applaud their efforts and—"

"Shut up!" Mal yelled into her face, his eyes on fire. "Don't _you_ say a _nan zuo de_ thing about _my_ Browncoats! You're the _dian kuang de_ _biao zi_ that keeps standin up for the _tao yan de_ Alliance! I don't give a _gou pi_ about what you think! You admitted that you don't know stuff—you're also completely blind bout what's real!"

Lady's eyes were as hot as Mal's—she was gritting her teeth behind her swollen lips as he unloaded on her.

"You're the blind one!" she shouted back at him. "The bloody fucking difference is that yours are blinders because you don't _want_ to fucking see! You have a bloody fanny fit because you're afraid that I _do_ understand and you become a fucking mad aleck because you're afraid that I completely understand you and you want to put the mockers on that!" She reached up to violently pull the hunk of hair out of her eyes as she shouted at him, "and the fucking reason why is that you don't _want _anyone to be able to understand you because you think that'll make you look weak!"

"I could kill you for that!" he snarled at her.

"Why," she snarled right back at him. "It's the bloody fucking truth! But do you know the truth or is all you know is how to whitter on with lies? Is being _tough_; is having an armored arse all there is to your life?" Now it was Lady's turn to look at him as if he was insane. "What I told you in that hotel room—what I said about you and how you try so bloody hard to make it look like you don't give a wank about others—it's both the _truth_ and _CRAP_ and you _know_ it! You're just too bloody fucking _scared_ to admit to yourself that you _CARE_!"

Before Mal Reynolds could form a coherent thought, both of his hands were out in front of him—

Wrapped around Lady's neck!

He could feel her throat, her larynx—he started to squeeze!

Three things happened almost simultaneously.

Lady's eyes turned back into bottomless black holes.

Her left hand came up and grabbed Mal's right wrist—the pain as she found the bones and nerves in his wrist/forearm—when she squeezed—it lanced up his arms causing him to cry out—with contemptuous ease she ripped his hands away from her throat—

Her right hand had reached out—'c' clamping his own throat.

Mal had the sudden memory of that steel-like claw grip that had grabbed him from behind in the Cargo Bay almost tearing his head/spine right out of the top of his body—

He froze—his breathing stopped.

He could see his dead body in Lady's eyes.

"The average human female for my age range can generate one hundred thirty four force pounds in their grip," Lady told him in a voice made of liquid hydrogen as the steel clamp around his throat held his life in the balance. "The highest level for the grip for a normal human female in top physical shape for my age range is one hundred fifty six force pounds." Lady's swollen lip curled in an angry snarl. "I'm capable of generating two hundred and two force pounds in my grip. It only takes thirty two pounds to choke off your air and seventy six pounds to crush your windpipe."

Her eyes held him for another moment before—

"Are you ready to listen you fucking spackhead?"

Mal's eyes flared back at her—his own rage give him the strength to choke back at her—

"Why don't you just go ahead and kill me _bitch_!"

The _nova_ of fury erupted in Lady's eyes, causing Mal's fear to finally override his rage. _I'm dead_ was all he had time to think.

But somehow, the steel around his windpipe suddenly vanished—

He really didn't notice it however, for Lady's other hand was driving into his mid-section, his breath exploding out of him as he folded around her fist.

It was in that folded form that he fell back into Wash's chair, his arms wrapping around his middle. The pain the movement caused in his ankle was forgotten for the moment as he concentrated on _trying_ to breathe. He wasn't sure if anything was broken or ruptured but the world got very dim. It seemed like forever before he was able to suck in anything remotely resembling a breath. When at last things started to work, the grayness and spots before his eyes slowly cleared. He looked up across the side of the pilot console—

All he could see was a pair of hands which seemed to be gripping it from the other side.

He worked to clear his vision. He was able after a moment to force his body upright in the pilot's chair. It was only then that he realized that Lady was still on the other side of the console. She was all the way down on her haunches holding herself steady with the hands that were still on the console. He could only see the top of her head as it looked as if she was resting her forehead against the outside part of the console.

"What—" he managed to get out.

"I'm _blanking_," Lady grated. "I can recognize it because the trigger is still in effect. I'm trying not to go too far under because I _need_ to remember all of this. So just shut up for a minute—I need to get myself calm."

That was okay with him for he was only starting to realize just how sore his stomach was from her blow. _Was that all her strength or was she holdin back so's she didn't kill me_. He leaned back into the chair, trying to get himself under control if only to lose some of the tenseness that was locking his muscles and joints up.

A few minutes went by.

"Captain Reynolds." Lady's voice was quiet and neutral—which was enough to make him worried. "Can you see that I am attempting to try and reach an understanding with you that—while I have no expectation whatsoever that it will satisfy either of us—will at least allow us to live with each other."

"What makes you think—" he started.

"Captain _please_!" this was _sharp._ "Unless you want a repeat of that little kiss I just gave you allow me to continue!"

Mal wondered _is she pullin my leg or was that really a 'kiss' for her—best that you never find out the answer Malcolm._ At the moment all he was able to say to her was, "fine."

"If," she continued in a tone which still held an edge to it, "you paid attention to a couple of things I said, this argument over my oaths is only half of what I'm in a ruddy-to-do over. But I am attempting to get the issues worked out one at a time so that there can be no ambiguity. What I did to you—I would be willing to apologize if you recognized and accepted the two conditions I related to you earlier. But honesty forces me to add that only applies to the first issue. Regardless, we cannot make any headway if _you_ don't come to a couple of realizations."

With that her head raised up over the edge of the console. His eyes met her one eye—

The nova was still there. But Mal could almost _see_ the effort Lady was making to keep it under control.

He had to swallow in response to that look. But he also wasn't giving up yet.

"And why is it _my_ problem?"

The nova flared—her control slipped—she shot up to her feet, arching in over the console—grabbing him by the front of his shirt—yanking him up out of the chair like a weightless rag doll—pulling him right over to her—their noses once again inches apart as she _snarled—_

"What keeps us from coming close to an understanding is your _bloody fucking ego_!"

That...startled him. "How does my ego—?" he asked.

Her look/tone was back to liquid hydrogen. "Do you think for one flippin second that _you_ were the only sergeant in the entire Browncoat army that went through what you went through when you lost your war? Was your unit the _only_ unit in Serenity Valley, you the _only_ sergeant? And even if you were, and from what I read on the Cortex you ended up in command of the entire brigade or something, were there—in other units—corporals or senior privates 'in charge' who had the same responsibility as you because everyone senior to them was gone? Beyond that, beyond Serenity Valley, were there other Browncoat forces on other fronts; on other planets—it doesn't matter if they were in combat or not. Combat would have made it all that more intense, but how about some sergeant somewhere in a nice quiet secure position who had to explain to his people that they had to lay down their arms and _wait_ for the buggerin Alliance to show up to accept their surrender? Do you think that they got any different or better treatment? Do you think they felt any differently having to deal with the questions, confusion, agony and bitter grief of their people? How can you possibly think that you are the _only one_ to go through what you went through?"

Mal was looking at her, his mouth hanging open—

Lady let go of his shirt. He kind of fell backwards into Wash's chair looking up at her. She once again crossed her arms in front of her glaring down at him.

"How—"he barely managed, "how could you know?"

Her one good eye blazed. Through the fire he could see the memories passing behind her vision.

"Did you pay attention to _anything_ I said in the bar?" she snapped. "I told you that as a mercenary I both won and _lost_ wars! When you join the Guild—unless you have money or family ties within the Guild—you start out like anybody in any regular army—either as an enlisted airman, soldier or sailor. Considering that I had spent twelve years as an officer in my father's space navy, I _tried_ to get into the naval branch but they looked at my Special Forces background and made me a sergeant in the infantry of a 'regular' level mercenary group. In the four years it took for me to be able to transfer to the naval branch I had to surrender _twice,_ once to an 'excellent' and once to an 'elite' unit. And believe me when I tell you Captain that I don't think units with that advanced rankings have egos that were any less inflated when they accepted a 'regular' unit's surrender than your Alliance must have been toward your Browncoats."

A haunted shadow came in behind her eye. "The 'kill 'em all' units I told you about. As I said the Guild rules dictated that they always take other Guild units prisoner. That doesn't mean that they were nice about it—and for reasons I've never been able to figure out the Guild turns a blind eye to those kinds of events. One of those surrenders I just mentioned was to that kind of unit. Abuse, beatings, the rape of both sexes occurs with alarming regularity." She had to swallow, "that didn't happened to me—that time—I guess I was just too big and too scary—but it happened to some of my people. I would think that as a sergeant you would understand how I felt."

Mal took this in. As much as he didn't want to—

Had he ever thought—ever considered—

Unbidden, a memory came to him from the Alliance rehabilitation camp. Several times other non-coms from other Browncoat units in the camp had come to him—he knew that they wanted to talk, maybe ask for help, maybe exchange ideas about how to handle certain problems—maybe needing to unburden themselves to someone of the same rank/responsibility who would understand—

He'd walked away from them every time.

He had tried—once—to attend a 'meeting' of non-coms within the camp. One of them—he couldn't even remember the face—had tried to get him to talk—

He had stormed out and never went back.

He hadn't needed any of them. He'd held it all in. During the times when he reached the edge—Zoe had been there for him and she was all he'd needed for he had truly believed that only she understood what they had gone thought.

But for all the smug superiority, verbal abuse and unnecessary pushing and shoving, the Alliance had never gone beyond that. While his wounded initially went far too long in his mind without medical treatment and because of the sudden collapse of the Browncoat army, there was an extreme food shortage for the first week it was a fact that none of his people were beaten unless they had attacked a Purple Belly; certainly none of them had been raped.

The Alliance hadn't been perfect. Mal had heard about some isolated abuses including rape which happened to Browncoats in other units. But everything he had heard had included that the Alliance at least tried to keep that part of its house in order. What he had heard had been kept quiet but the word also had been that the Alliance had come down on their own people—the ones involved in such abuse—like a sledgehammer.

But now—could he force himself to recognize that he wasn't 'special'? _That_ was what Lady was asking him to do.

He looked up at her, his eyes meeting her one good eye.

She saw the look in his eyes.

After a moment, she nodded to him, releasing him as she did so. She then turned around going over to lean heavily onto the co-pilot panel.

Allowing him time to sit back and think.

He wasn't sure just how long he thought about it.

Eventually—

"If you ever do anythin like that to me again—I'll kill you."

Lady slowly turned around. Her one eye almost looked amused. "Don't you _ever_ use a different threat? That one sounds like a rerun." Before he could react, she waved her hand at him, "never mind—stray angry thought for which I apologize." She then took a deep breath before saying, "I may assume by that statement Captain that we have at least come to a meeting of the minds in regards to my oaths and our aborted conversation from the bar."

Mal glared at her, his voice was hard and clipped. "I don't like it. I want to toss you into the VTOL engines. But bein honest with myself I can see your point. I'm _fen nu de_ for havin to think 'bout things I locked away—I'd moved on and havin those ripped open again—"

He seemed to catch himself before he picked up speed. He closed his eyes for a long moment before taking a breath. Then he again looked at Lady.

"But as I said, I can see your point. I ain't happy bout—but I can live with it." His glare got more intense as he added, "Still don't think that what you did was a fair level. But it's done."

His eyes narrowed as the hardness came back into hers. "I think that it was a fair cop Captain," she said. "For please remember that there were _two_ issues that I was unhappy about in as far as your conduct." She stood upright, folding her arms under her breasts while she looked squarely at him. "And to be honest Captain, it is the second issue that I am the most upset—and angry over."

A mystified/questioning look came into Mal's eyes.

Her good eye narrowed again. "Now Captain Reynolds, let us clarify something before we go on. The great majority of what I'm about to talk about concerns the conversation that we had on this Bridge when you were offering me to come along with you."

Now it was Mal's turn for his eyes to narrow.

Lady gave him a nod. "It was during that conversation that my initial impressions of you were formed and/or confirmed." She shook some hair out of her eyes before she went on.

"I think that one way you could be characterized Captain would be what you call around here as a 'straight shooter'. A kind of what-you-saw-is-what-you-got type of person." Her gaze became very intense. "It seems to me that when you are in a direct confrontation Captain—which is something that you and I have done several times now—that you try to be as honest as any that come. But at the same time, I'm more than positive that there are some situations and/or people that you deal with in which you lie with the suave smoothness of a master con artist."

Mal shifted angrily at that but didn't say anything—because it _was_ true.

Lady kind of leaned her body back against the co-pilots console, her arms still folded under the bloodstained swell of her breasts. "I on the other hand have the admitted handicap of always trying to be honest with whomever I am dealing with unless I am in ...what you would call an 'undercover capacity' which I am most assuredly _not_ at this time."

Mal shook his head. "Just what is the point of all this?"

Lady cocked her head at him. "You really don't know? Considering everything I've said about my 'blank' times and how I'm trying to deal with them? Considering that I told you that after I regained consciousness in the Infirmary early this morning that I had a very detailed conversation with those who were waiting for me about the revelations that had come during that same evening? Given that—you still don't have any idea what it is that has me so stropped?"

Mal gave her a very 'not caring' shrug.

She gave out a snort, her eye flaring. "Fine. So be it. You want the other reason why I did what I did today Captain Reynolds; well, here it is."

Lady came away from the co-pilots console, coming right up to the side of the pilot's console, placing her hands down upon it in order to lean over toward where he sat in Wash's chair—

Her tone was like sawing nails—"We will leave aside for the moment the new information regarding Beylix, the Marshal and my causing the death of one of those I fought against—although I will tell you now that I am less than pleased with the lateness of that revelation. The supreme question of the moment is—that I need _you_ to explain to _me_—why did you—in this very room when I first come aboard—during the conversation that I just mentioned, the one where we talked about my tagging along with this bedraggled lot—why—did you lie to me—or at least withhold information which I would think would be very _very_ vital to someone in my condition?"

Mal blinked, completely at a loss for what she was talking about. "Wha—" was all he could manage.

"Captain Reynolds," Lady's voice was suddenly _very_ dangerous. "During that conversation-when I asked you—after I told you that I blanked during the indecent with Jayne in the Dining Area—when I _specifically asked you_ if I said or did anything that I needed to know about—_why_ didn't you tell me that during that incident I had talked about my _husband_?"

Mal blinked again. At least this time he was able to say to himself—

_Gos se—_


	31. Clarity

Chapter Thirty One – Clarity

* * *

The silence was bowstring tight on the bridge of _Serenity_. Mal sat in Wash's seat, his eyes locked with Lady—standing next to the pilots console—who had folded her arms under her breasts—she wasn't taping a foot with impatience but the impression was still there. Her eyes—well...eye—if looks could kill—

Finally, Mal managed to get his brain in gear.

It wasn't happy.

"Are you sayin that the main reason why you did that all to me is because you were angry 'bout not bein told about your _husband?_" He looked at Lady as if she was _completely_ insane!

The _nova_ flashed fully into her eye—

Then his survival instinct kicked in and he threw up a hand to forestall any eruption from her—

"Wait—" he managed, trying to organize his thoughts— "gimmie a chance to get my head in one place."

"Please do," came her frigid reply. "As I think you can note, both from this event as well as the little incident with Jayne trying to treat me like a bloody whore that I'm more than a little sensitive to the subject of my husband."

Mal looked at her, shaking his head a little. "I'm a little—" he could only wave the hand about as he was completely bewildered. "I mean, I know that I've never been married—" he reflected on that a moment before grimacing, "well, not married to a woman that I would _want_ to be married too."

Lady gave him a grudging grunt. "Wash told me the entire story behind Saffron Captain—so as far as that goes you have my understanding—and my sympathy."

Mal looked up at her, "look, leavin aside whither or not my not tellin you 'bout your husband bein worth what you did to me, the reason why I did it was 'cause I was hopin that you would forget what happened between you and Jayne." He shook his head. "I told you at that time that you were scary and I meant that. I was hopin that you and Jayne would at some point figure out how to get along but right then I didn't know how you would react against Jayne if I told you what happened. Not knowin you back then I wasn't gonna take a chance that you would do somethin bad."

Lady cocked her head at him. "So, for trying to protect Jayne you managed to land _yourself _in deep shit with me."

Anger came back into Mal's eyes—

Lady waved a hand at him, "sorry, pissed-off knee-jerk reaction." She took a breath then replied with kind of an 'I-_really_-don't-want-to-accept-this-but-I'll-force-myself-to-do-so' look on her face. "I applaud the reasoning Captain, I really do. I'm not sure I would make the same decision under similar circumstances but I can well understand given the reasons you just stated." Her one eye then narrowed, "that of course doesn't mean that I have to like it."

Mal threw up both of his hands, "what the _hump_ would you expect me to do?"

Lady seemed to think for a moment before she said, "let me be clear Captain, I understand your reasons. And to be fair, it seems that _no one_ thought to tell me about the second incident when I put the knife through my hand so I have to give that one a pass. Upon meditation this morning I was able to recall that incident up to the point where I injured myself. But at the same time, none of it lessens just how _pissed_ I am over that _your_ inaction." She held up a hand as he started to open his mouth again. "We could go all-about-the-round-about all evening about this Captain. It would suffice to say that while you certainly disagree with what I did to you as far as it being retribution for your failure to tell me about my husband—" her gaze suddenly went hard, "to me it was barely adequate."

Mal again shook his head angrily. "How can—I don't care how much you love the guy! I don't know anyone who would be worth what you did to me."

"Take into account my situation Captain," she snapped back at him. "The fact that I am an amnesiac who is in a place where she knows she doesn't belong—" She stopped, closing her eye to take a deep breath, "no—that wouldn't make sense to you would it." She opened her eye again. "The full answer is long and complicated Captain—in as far as what parts of it have come back to me of which I am _not_ sure just how complete the picture is. But I can tell you a couple of things."

Lady then turned around and moved back across to the co-pilots console. She turned to face Mal again, leaning her butt back against the console, crossing her arms, her head lowered.

"The first thing you need to understand Captain is that even after all of this—" her head came up allowing Mal to see the pain in her eye, "even after everything that has happened in the last day—I still have no actual memory of my husband."

Mal blinked. "Huh?"

"That being said Captain, let me try to fill in some 'blank' spots for you. As I told you...I have no memory of my husband. While I'm sure that I could pick him out if I saw him, at the moment I cannot remember his face, his voice, his name—nothing. What I have remembered is much...but I do not think all of the vast and profound effect he has had on my life. Why that is I cannot tell you. But based on what the others who were with me early this morning were able to tell me about my previous blank times, it may well be that some kind of mental barrier exists within my mind. I can only surmise that—"

She broke off at that point, her head dropping down; it sounded as if she fighting against onrushing emotions. She reached up to rub something out of her one eye—which left her hand more smeared with dried blood than from before.

"I can only surmise," she repeated, her tone much thicker than even the damage to her lips/mouth would allow, "that I somehow violated one of my vows to my husband and something—I do not know what—has caused me to block him off more forcefully than the rest of my memories. It may very well be a side effect—some kind of mental protection mechanism—from all the hypnosis and other mental conditioning which I have experienced in my life."

"But—!" and that word came very forcibly, "while I can't remember him—I have been able to remember things which are just as important to me—such as him being the cause of my surviving my blackest days—my wish to utterly end my life with total dishonor."

With that, Lady reached up, gently rubbing her back of her left hand against her swollen right cheek. "In the end—after what happened in that last battle where I lost everything—after I quit the Guild—as I told you I had nothing left."

She gave him a very steady look with her one good eye. "Not to belabor the point Captain as I know that I have already referred to this several times but it is critical that this be understood. It was at that time that I knew that I had to give up on what remained of my oath to the marital clan. I was going to throw away every single remaining scrap of my personal honor. I resolved to kill myself in violation of the parts of the oath that could never be renounced. I resolved to turn my back on the clan and their entire history; everything they stood for as I had turned my back to them in order to become a mercenary. After everything that happened to me—I did not deserve their history, their honor—just as they didn't deserve me. I made my plans—I went home—I would at least allow my mum and father some time with me before I did the deed—not that I was very good company while I was there."

She took another breath. "Despite being with them I waited it out—as I owned nothing there was nothing for me to give away that might raise a warning to those who were trying to help me—those who cared for me—"

"Then—something saved me—"

Mal's eyes squinted at the change in Lady's voice.

"I have described how my personal honor was destroyed and how me and my life were brought to despair, hopelessness, self-loathing, personal isolation and total contempt for everything I once was. It was there that I waited with anticipation for the ultimate self abuse—suicide."

Mal snorted. "Been there, done that—"

He flinched as the _nova_ flared again in her eye.

"Look toffee nose," her angry tone clawed at his ears, "take a running jump as far as your bloody fucking ego! Put your flippin brain in gear and actually _think_ about some of the things I've told you tonight. I had every intention of killing myself—I had the time, place and method locked and ready!" Lady shook her head in an angry jerk even as her eye blazed. "The bloody reality of it Reynolds is that despite everything you've gone through—I really don't think that you were _ever_ at the place I was."

Mal started to open his mouth—

"Will you _shut_ the _fuck_ up!" she snarled at him as she jerked forward away from the console, fists balled, tone matching the blazing eye. "I know what I'm talking about here and you _don't_!

_That_ got Mal's attention—as well as shutting his mouth.

"There's a bloody well difference," she went on, "between wanting to die because everything in your world has been wiped away and specifically, intentionally with malice aforethought planning to kill yourself because you no longer want to live. And that's where I was; in violation of everything I had been taught and raised to believe."

An angry look came back into Mal's eyes. "Now wait a second—"

"No, _you_ wait a second!" Lady shot right back with a jabbing pointed finger for emphasis. "For once in your on-the-blink life try to look at it from someone else's bloody point of view. The whole damn Verse does _not_ belong to Captain Malcolm Reynolds. You obviously can't or won't fathom just what all has happened to me with all the ramifications against my memory loss. Well guess what tossbag, I really don't give a _fuck_ if you don't understand, don't agree with or just plain don't fucking _like_ the way I'm trying to handle this. But being that I'm stuck here for the foreseeable future and in the interest of our getting this behind us in order for us to be able to tolerate each other's presence, I'm at least _trying_ to give you an explanation."

After a moment, while he didn't like it a bit, Mal had to give her a grudging nod accepting this. He knew that in certain ways she was right but—she was asking him to look at things inside of him that he didn't want to see."

Lady took a deep breath with closed eyes, leaning back into the co-pilot's console, going through that familiar routine to try and calm her emotions before, "so—what saved me? What kept me from carrying out that carefully orchestrated plan?"

Lady took another deep shuddering breath, her eye closing—

"I met the man who would eventually become my husband."

Somehow Mal had already figured that one out. There couldn't be any other explanation. He let her have his thoughts in a sarcastic tone, "should of figured. I suppose that it was one of them 'love at first sight' type of things (said in a 'girly-sweet' voice)."

Lady gave out what sounded like an 'amused' snort completely ignoring the sarcasm.

"Rather Captain, something tells me the reality of it was the 'other' cliché—the 'I-hate-the-guy-but-I'll-join-up-with-him-because-he-has-something-else-I-want' cliché." Lady closed her eyes taking a breath. "I mentioned my father's 'space navy' as well as the fact that I tried to get into the 'naval' portion of the Guild. I wanted to continue the career I started in my father's navy; that of warship command. My goal within the Guild was to somehow get the command of a large warship, battlecruiser size at least."

Lady shook her head. "Unfortunately, my total command experience within my father's navy was the command of a destroyer type vessel and…I've already told some of this to Zoe but that ended badly as far as my career track." A sad smile came to her face. "I didn't attain that command until I was almost thirty. The navy had other plans for it seemed that I was tapped—due to my training in my mother's martial clan—for assignment to the Special Forces Branch before I even graduated from the Naval Academy. So I did a number of years in Special Ops—and I do believe it was called the SAS—before I was at last allowed to return to a regular officer's track. So I was behind the curve as far as time, experience and promotions as an active naval officer by the time I held that command."

Lady went on with, "as far as the Mercenaries Guild was concerned, just as my Special Forces training initially forced me into the infantry when I shifted over to the Guild, my skills as a pilot—training for which I received as a part of my Special Forces assignment—came to the fore and denied me the goal of ship command sending me instead into naval air/space squadrons and eventually into commanding squadrons and air groups." She shook her head slowly, clearly unhappy with the 'memories', " I continued to try to get into the 'naval command track' but considering my temperament at the time it was easy to see why the Guild would never grant me that license."

She nodded at Mal, "to return to the point—what I think happened was that when I went home to see my parents before ending my life, the man who would years later become my husband was developing a new kind of warship for my father. A warship that caught my attention so forcefully that my desire to end my life was put aside. Something tells me that the reality of it; of the ship after I was able to bond myself with it, it affected me so strongly that despite my initial dislike for the man behind the ship, my desire to end my life ebbed away."

Lady gave what looked like a sad smile. "And as the saying goes, the rest is history—a history of which only nightmares of things that went _wrong_ have so far come back to me but—something else tells me it eventually led me to a life that I am proud of."

Mal kind of waved his hands indicating that none of this made sense to him.

She nodded to him in understanding. "I know this is difficult to find interesting Captain. Much of what I'm saying is still very nebulous to me as well. What I do know; or at least have come to realize are the several profound affects my husband has had on me other than ending my desire to commit suicide." She kind of squared her shoulders, "too much is still lost to me Captain. But what I can tell you is that my husband and I had a—a bond that goes beyond anything you may think of."

Lady waved her hands around the Bridge. "Much of what has happened here tonight is the results of that bond. I still haven't sorted it all out—but it was clear to me—that with Zoe's words leading to the restoration that I even _had_ a husband—that revelation became the sole reason why I have been able to have so many techniques and abilities to deal with my current handicap come back to me."

She gave him a look. "Again to clarify Captain, the simple fact that I know now that I have a husband has 'triggered' an enormous number of flashes. And the way he figures within those is an example of what he is to my life."

Lady's 'look' turned into something much more. In his life, Mal had never seen anyone who looked more 'serious'.

"I don't mean to lay all of this on you sir, and I certainly don't wish to 'gush' on you anymore than I would think that you would want to hear such a thing. But I am more that certain that the relationship that my husband and I share is something that is quite rare." Lady's head dropped just a bit as if she was suddenly embarrassed, "it seems that we are more than just lovers, more than friends and life mates. It seems to me that somehow we are actually bonded together in ways that as far as I know, are unknown to your Verse. Ways in which we literally need each other in order to—the only way I can describe the impression is to say—I need him in order to stay sane."

Her eyes went 'guarded'; her tone became 'wary'. "To try and illustrate just what I'm attempting to explain, I'm going to tell you something that my impressions tell me is something that is known to only a very few of my closest intimates—whoever they are."

Lady held his eyes for a moment; Mal realized that she was demanding that he keep what she was about to tell him a very guarded secret.

He didn't really want to—but he had to admit that he was curious so he nodded.

She—slowly as to make sure Mal understood—told him. "it is obvious to me—and I apologize Captain if this sounds somewhat bizarre for I can only assume that you have never had any formal mental health treatment let alone the type of treatment that is practiced on persons of my abilities and lifestyle within my universe. But—to make this as simple sounding as I can; I am _strongly_ sure that the concept that my husband is my 'anchor', my mental 'point' around which all of my psyche revolves has been hypnotically planted into my psyche."

Mal—blinked. "Say what?" he asked.

Lady smiled at his confusion. "Remember Captain, about how much of a 'mental mess' I was after literally a decade of extreme depression, suicidal tendencies, alcoholism and self-abuse? Then factor in what instinct tells me was the lifestyle that the two of us were living together—"

Mal blinked again, "what?"

Lady's smile turned grim. "As I said Captain, while I can't remember 'him', some of what he gave to my life has come back. And a very big part of that was that he's a man on a mission. Although it was apparently his warships that first attracted me, I must confess that later on, I signed onto that mission with my entire life, heart and soul. Remember what I said on this very Bridge; about how I was also involved in some kind of ongoing conflict within my region of space, a conflict which was both deep seated and pervasive, a conflict not unlike what may be happening here in your Verse."

She gave Mal a very direct look. "You may think that I am stubborn, naive and blind by not accepting that your Alliance is both the aggressor as well as the oppressor here within your Verse Captain. I have repeatedly told you that my ethics require me to remain neutral until I have seen an unbiased situation which could prove or disprove what you allege." The look in her eye got sharper, "what drives that ethic Captain is the fact that there is _always_ 'another side to the story'." She had to hesitate before she added in a suddenly tight voice, "something tells me that it was my husband who taught me that lesson—and that it was a lesson dearly learned. But—" and she again pierced Mal with that eye, "between the two of us Captain, I can readily see you're your 'side' of it and acknowledge how that would affect your perceptions of so much of your Verse. And the reason why I can understand it is that a sufficient number of impressions and 'something's' have come back to me—as in the massive corporations and their butchering armies that I told you about earlier—regarding the mission that my husband and I fight for and that mission is nothing less than trying to bring an end to a similar kind of abusive authority not unlike what appears to exist within parts of your Alliance and its associated commercial partners. A primary difference exists however—" she gave him a pointed look, "and that difference is the fact that what is happening within my galaxy would make the minor—and I apologize if you find that descriptor insulting Captain but to me it is accurate—'abuses' perpetuated by your Alliance are like a drop of water in the ocean when compared to the actions and the agenda of the Great Corporations."

Lady nodded her head toward Mal as she finished with, "given that fact and all of the impressions and ghost-like memories that I have managed to recover—when placed against my all-to-graphic nightmares—and understanding that much of what I perceive may be some figment of my imagination or dreams, I have to accept that _everything_ that has currently come back to me tells me that _our_ current life together—my husband and mine—has given me a very real and exciting reason to live—something which I would hope that even you would agree is enough for me to be sensitive toward him."

After a moment, Mal nodded, he _thought_ he understood what she was talking about. _Kind of like you Malcolm when you first heard about the Browncoat movement_ he thought. _So just like I'm sensitive about the Browncoats, she's touchy about this mysterious husband of hers._

Lady's 'smile' went away, "to try and give you a—deeper idea about just how different the link with my husband is; you know about some of my nightmares." When he nodded that he did, she went on with, "some of them have now 'clarified'. I've already told you about the young man who was crushed in the gun turret accident?"

Mal nodded again to that. A sad look came to her—

"Apparently that young man was my first true serious love. As best as I can tell from the details of the nightmares, that incident apparently happened when I was a junior officer in my father's space navy after I left Special Operations."

Lady then took a breath as if what she was about to tell him was painful. "At some point many many years later; it was—as best as I can tell sometime before I married my husband—that first young man—that first love—his grave was desecrated and the recovered remains with his DNA were used by an enemy of ours to create a clone which was used in an attempt to mentally destroy me."

Despite his anger/reluctance to show Lady any empathy; Mal's face kind of 'scrunched' at that. While the very thought of something like that was repulsive to him, after his encounter with Niska, he would never doubt the 'evil' of man again. "Sounds like you guys played rough," he told Lady.

She nodded her agreement. "Something tells me that that particular event was the final catalyst that eventually led to our getting married." She suddenly sounded a little 'choked up'. "It hurts so much to have just these impressions—not being able to _know_ aspects of our relationship while _knowing_ that the relationship we had was so special—" she put a brake on that train of thought.

Mal waited through her trying to recover. When it looked like she was somewhat ready, he found that he just had to ask, "so you guys are—or were—more than just joined at the hip. You're sorta—" he was at a loss from there.

Lady kind of nodded. "Something tells me that initially it was more of a bonding of spirit and personalities that transcended normal relationships because of the unique relationship and life that we shared. Added to that is the 'anchor' portion I mentioned. Due to that incident with the clone of my first love; by a deliberate hypnotic procedure, the concept that my husband is a point that I can focus on when I am under mental and/or psychic attack was inserted into my mind. The anchor he represents is also used to give me a 'rock' to stand on when past trauma, the nightmares and such—when they rise up in an attempt to overwhelm me."

She gave Mal another 'grim' smile. "I'm telling you this to try and make you see why I am so sensitive to anything regarding my husband. I have already told you how much has come back to me just from the mention that he _existed_ in my life." Her eyes darkened and narrowed, "think about it Captain, how much further progress I might have already made if I had known of him that much earlier."

"So you're husband—" Mal kind of wondered in a blatant attempt to avoid that last statement of hers, "it would be safe to say that you two are more than—close. In fact you might say that you two are—joined at the brain or somethin like that."

Lady looked at Mal, clearly annoyed that he had avoided her pointed comment. Finally she just shrugged and gave him a nod of agreement.

_And if they're that close— _Mal said to himself,_ and she did somethin that she feels was wrong to him, somethin unforgivable that would really hurt him bad—that could be why she's feelin bout him the way she does. And as messed up as her brain is—all that stuff she's allowed all those people to do to her brain; how much she's let people walk in and out of her mind—to my mind it might be worse than what River puts up with. But—if she thinks that she caused him—her husband—that much grief and pain—that why she's so touchy bout it. And yet she's bound to him so—_

"But there is more as well." Lady's face had gone a little softer while he had been musing. Her tone also sounded hesitant. It wasn't clear to Mal if she didn't really want to tell him this part or if she was having trouble remembering it. But it was clear that she intended to forge ahead. "A year or so later—something tells me that our joining—it became even deeper—a true 'bonding'—something more personal that anyone in your Verse can understand—and what you just described—a joining of the brain—is a good way to put it."

Mal gave her a kind of 'what kind of crazy thing is this?' kind of look which asked the question for him.

Lady's hesitation was still very clear. "It's like—it is difficult for me Captain for so much of what _has_ come back to me seems to be focused primarily on unpleasant memories or nightmares. While I have not had a _clear_ nightmare about this, that it is...or at least that it _was_ a nightmare to me is real enough. But because it contains my husband, much of the normal details I'm subjected to is absent—it's as if my own mind is continuing to torture me for some reason."

Lady paused; thinking or remembering, he wasn't sure which.

Then she finally said in a voice which was very unsure. "The impression—the knowledge that I can only call 'something tells me'— is that within a year of our marriage, my husband was gravely injured—almost _almost_ dead—just like that same young man/lover from earlier in my life—in a stupid equipment accident—"

Lady stopped—it looked to Mal as if she was struggling to get the memory to come to her. "I...and one other...were the only ones who were able to get to him." Her hands came up to hold the sides of her bruised/battered/bloody head as if trying to shake off a migraine. "In order to save his life, myself and the other—something tells me...that other was someone else who is close to me—I get the impression that—that someone is a she—a young woman."

Lady's head lowered until her chin was almost touching her chest. "The two of us and—there _was_ another with us—but the third was physically too weak to help—and my husband was fading fast."

Lady's head came back up. Her look—Mal realized that she was in a major 'flash'.

"The third one—was something like River—having psychic powers—but they were _born_ with the Power so they weren't sick and tortured like River—the third one _merged_ my husband's psyche with mine and the young woman's in order to give him— his body—the willpower of three who loved each other, forcing his heart to keep beating until medical help could arrive."

Mal held his breath, not sure if he was shocked by what he had just heard or the intensity of the look on her face. This was his first time seeing a flash this intense. Sudden tears were going down through the blood on Lady's face as she—Lady's eye started to roll into the back of her head as the 'flash' went deeper—

"A daughter," Lady whispered with amazement. "—the young woman—was his—my husband's—adopted daughter—which made her _our_ daughter—_my_ daughter—"

"I do have a family—" she breathed. Lady's hands shifted about to the front of her face which she dropped into those hands. After a long moment, what sounded like a 'sob' came out from behind those hands.

Several minutes went by. Mal took the time to reach down and feel his foot. The pain was beginning to subside. If he could get one of the Doctors hot/cold packs on it—at the same time he glanced at his wrist—where Lady had grabbed it to tear it from her throat it was starting to bruise while the pain there was increasing.

"My pardon Captain," Lady said at last raising her now totally messy face to look out at him. "As I told you earlier, I have not had a chance to go through everything that has come back to me since last night so many of my feelings are a little ragged at the moment."

Mal could only respond with a humorless smile. It wasn't that he begrudged her having a family—but on top of everything else in the past day—his insides were more than a bit raw over the subject.

Lady closed her eye again, talking another group of those deep breaths to settle her emotions before she said, "to continue and to let you know so you don't get the impression that I have any psychic abilities which I do not, this bonding was affected from the outside by someone who has psychic powers. It makes...the three of us—my husband, our daughter (her voice caught a little)—very very close—but nothing more. As you said—a joining of the minds. The particulars about it have not come back." A shuddering breath went through her.

After another moment, Lady managed, "there is nothing more." After another second, she opened her eye to look at him, "still Captain, I hope that can convey to you just how deep this bond we share is. And as such, you may hopefully see just why I would react so...strongly if information about him...or memories of mine about him were withheld from me."

Mal's insides kinda felt sick. What he was hearing was downright unnatural to him...and he held real reservations about _anyone_ being that close to him. However as reluctant he was to admit it he thought that he was starting to understand just where Lady was with this.

Still—

He stared at a spot on the far wall for a long moment. He warred with his emotions, thought about what Lady had said about his ego—and decided—

"As far as I can see, even if you think I'm a stuck-up son-of-a-bitch with a stubborn ego—"

"_Stop!_" Lady commanded.

Mal looked back over toward her. She looked as if her entire body was one rigid rod. She was staring down at the deck in front of her. But even with her head being lowered, Mal could see the _nova_ radiating from her eyes.

Then she started to speak, the tone strained through clenched teeth.

"Okay, I've about had all I can take you bloody baboon! I'm going to spell this out to you frame by fucking frame."

Her head stayed lowered but her eye came up skewering him. "You survived the loss of your homeworld...and I assume that included everyone you loved as far as your family and kin. Because of that you poured your heart and very soul into your Browncoats—you're men and women, those under you, those you were responsible for—_they_ became your surrogate family—"

Mal's eyes flared wide. He reached out to grab the pilot's panel, pulling himself back up to his feet. He looked at Lady and growled, "that's enough! I don't need to hear about that—especially from someone like you."

It seemed as if the very air between the two of them crackled with electricity.

Then Lady's lips twisted into a snarl. "Well guess what spackhead, you're going to have to kill me to keep me from saying what I'm about to say." Her dipped head added power to her words, "and let me tell you right now, as royally pissed off as I am at this moment, if you approach me—I _will not_ hold back on you."

Mal blinked—because he realized _she means it!_

Mal bared his own teeth. "Say your piece. But you best watch where you step."

Lady's lip curled as if she was about to growl. But she stopped the moment—took a breath—

"Do you remember those on your homeworld Captain? Your parents and siblings if you had them—do you remember their names? Their faces?"

Mal bit back his desire to scream at her—because he wanted to leap at her, grab her by the throat again—

"Yeah, I do," he barely managed to get out. "That's all I got of 'em. Not so much as a single photo. I had some letters that were sent to me—lost all of those in Serenity Valley."

Lady gave him a nod.

"Do you remember your other dead Captain?" Her voice was now strained—as if she was fighting to keep from choking up. "Those you lost in all the battles you fought? Those Browncoats—those men and women who looked to you to get them safely through to the other side. Do you have nightmares about them?"

Mal caught himself. He looked at Lady, felt that eye of hers burning into him.

Only Zoe knew about this—the nightmares he occasionally had—the ones he tried so hard to forget. Just as he knew—as probably did Wash—about some of the nightmares which Zoe battled on occasion.

Mal didn't want too—but he reluctantly nodded to Lady that he did have those kinds of things.

"Do you remember the names of your dead Captain? If they had families? Can you remember what they told you about what their boyfriends or girlfriends, wives and husbands were doing back home?"

Mal closed his eyes in pain. "Don't!" he grated.

"DO YOU REMEMBER THEM?"

"GORRAM IT YES!" he yelled back, his eyes coming back open to look at his tormentor.

Lady's head then came all the way up—causing Mal to have to swallow against a mouth suddenly gone dry.

The rage—the _nova_ was still in Lady's eyes. But it had been joined by a blackness—not the black hole of her anger—but a different blackness.

A blackness that looked as if it was about to swallow everything that _was_ Lady—

Then Lady started to talk again—in that deadly neutral tone.

"I understand that you know who you are Captain Reynolds. I understand that you know _what_ you are. A hard, angry, bitter man who knows just how shitty the whole fucking universe is; a man who can only live in the 'now' by grabbing what freedom he can from an existence which is committed to beating him down into the mud from which he can never recover. A man with no faith in tomorrow or faith in God or Fate or anything that he cannot make or do with his own two hands. A man who can count those he can trust to help him along on the fingers of one hand because to allow more people to come in close to him would only set him up for more pain and hurt in the future."

Mal's stopped breathing. What Lady had just said—how she had just described him—

"You're a man," Lady went on in that same tone, "who buries hope and faith and commitment and the need to bring others along to safety so deep that they can't see the light of day. Even if it was that same hope, faith, commitment and need to help others that made you such an outstanding sergeant in the Browncoats."

Mal's tone was that of _ice_! "Not another word. Even if you kill me—not another humpin word about that!" He didn't _want_ to be understood by this woman!

Lady's eye was on him—both the _nova_ and the blackness beating against his very existence.

"Isn't that what's kept you alive Captain—that you've managed to bury those feeling so deeply. What would you say to the fact that that is something that I was _never_ able to accomplish?"

Mal—blinked.

Lady's eye held him—she then again started to talk—her voice had turned tired—it sounded like her whole being was worn out.

"I've crashed and burned more than a dozen times Captain. Did you think to ask yourself why so many? Wouldn't any _sane_ person give up such a life after the second or third time? I was a mercenary—I could have left at any time when I wasn't bound to a particular group or mission. I could have gotten away—been free from that ever happening to me again." Lady sadly shook her head as if acknowledging how much of a fool she had been. "Because even at my worst," she went on, "even during the height of my Iron Bitch period, somehow I could never stop caring about what I was doing, I never stopped trying to keep those under me alive—not that I ever could admit it—especially to myself."

Lady stood up, her shoulders were slumped, tears started to run down from both eyes, getting mucked up in the blood coving her face.

"I _hated_ myself—hated what it had turned me into—how it had corrupted everything my mum's clan had installed into me—"

She sighed heavily. "Even if those pilots who I was riding so hard hated my guts—it didn't matter. As I said before I was fighting for them to _live_. _I_ didn't have a life—but I _knew_ that I could give _them_ their lives if I pushed them, worked them, _forced_ them to become as good as I was. Somehow, despite it all, despite the fact that those whom I was trying to train hated me—I felt a duty to them—and because of that—they somehow became _mine_." Lady looked at Mal. "I know you remember that part 'Sergeant' Reynolds, how you deal with that strange type of human that are called soldiers; bully them, baby them. Yell at them, talk to them. Drag them along kicking and screaming, push them ahead with a gentle hand. Swear at them, praise them." She shook her head as if lost. "Even if it was never admitted by me or them—all those arrogant, overblown elite bastards and bitches—they became mine. My people—with all the accompanying attachments." She snorted adding, "sometimes they would thank me when we survived with the mission completed. More often they were glad to be rid of me. But to me it didn't matter as at least they were alive."

Lady then looked back up, _grief_ filling her gaze. "But when it went sideways—when my best wasn't good enough and it all went in the crapper and I lost many of those boys and girls—after which I was blamed and reviled—"

One of Lady's hands came up to wipe the tears on her cheeks—all she managed to do was spread the blood and yuck around more.

"After sobering up from a week of complete submergence in alcohol I kept going back, doing it over and over. Despite the reality of history and my past, I was determined that there would 'never be a next time', that what had happened when it had gone sideways had to have been some mistake _I_ had made in their training or some contingency that _I_ hadn't taken into account in the planning."

Mal realized—Lady's eye had 'gone away'—it was 'seeing' something that wasn't in the room with her and Mal. "I was...chastising you because of your ego Captain. What do you think gave me the right to do so? Because at one point _my_ ego was as bad if not worse than yours." She shook her head in incredulity. "I had to be fucking _insane_! Some of those assignments—no _sane_ person if they really knew what they were getting into would have touched them." She gave out what sounded like a half-crazed 'giggle' in remembered disbelief. "Dynamic in-progress emergencies where the Alliance called in the nearest available unit of 'excellent' or higher rating—in some cases I had only five _days_ to put together a plan and train up the unit—" She stopped, totally buried in the memory; "it was worse than insane—it was suicide—and a couple of times that suicide became reality for those boys and girls."

Lady's eye then 'came back'...and with it she looked over at the Captain of _Serenity_—

"It didn't matter. As far as I was concerned—it was all about me—_my ego_ running amok—successes or failure for the whole bloody thing—it all rested on _my_ shoulders—because the reality of it was...that most of the time me and those kids actually managed to pull the impossible off and I forced myself to believe that it was my work that made that happen." She stopped for a moment before she breathed in a totally different tone, "and the times when it went sideways—"

She took a deep shuddering breath. "I was convinced—I admit that I was also addled—the only thing that I knew was that I and only I had to make amends for the mistakes when they were made. _My_ ego told me that it could only have been my mistakes that caused any failure and I was convinced that I had to atone for those mistakes by not allowing something similar to happen to another group. So regardless of the fact that deep inside I knew that I was killing myself—I kept going back, kept taking the hotshot assignments, kept digging myself further and further into my grave because the 'mistakes' still happened—and I could never admit that they _weren't_ my fault."

Lady's look changed. Mal realized that her eye—

—was seeking understanding. "Even so—the missions kept coming; the missions weren't going to go away; _someone_ would have to take them and I had somehow managed to convince myself that only _I_ could make sure that a disaster never happened again—that we would all, me and those kids—survive the next time it went into the crapper."

Lady let out what sounded like a choked laugh—her head dropped and she shook her head again. "Wasn't I pathetic?"

Mal was...stunned. He hadn't thought about it. He hadn't needed too for he had been aware of his own feelings in such matters. Now—

Then Lady looked back up at him—Mal's breath stopped again. For the _nova_ had left her eyes—only the blackness remained—a blackness that could only be total loss and despair—

"At least you remember your dead Captain."

Mal's—whole mind came to a stumbling halt—

Because despite everything else currently between the two of them, he instantly understood what she meant.

"You wonder why I'm so upset Captain?" Lady's voice was almost a whisper—choked even tighter with agony. "You remember your dead Captain. I don't. And after fifty years of war and combat my dead—those soldiers who had boyfriends, girlfriends, wives and husbands—they number in the thousands. I can see their faces in my nightmares—but nothing else of them; their lives, their loves, their _names_ remain in my memory somewhere where I can't find it—or them."

She brought her left hand up and rubbed the back of it against her right cheek.

"You remember your dead family Captain. I know I was young when they died but I don't remember the names of my dead brother and sister. I don't know my parents names. I don't know the name of the planet I was born on. I don't know my own _birthday_! I CAN'T EVEN SEE the face of my husband or the daughter I just remembered." She dropped her face back into her hands with another sob—

Mal could only sit there.

After a few minutes, he shifted uncomfortably—

"Think about it Captain," Lady suddenly cried, lifting her face to show him the mess of tears and smudged blood. "You at least _have_ all of those memories even if you don't want them. I have _nothing!_ And look at everything that has come back to me in the last hours—what has come back to me in just the last few minutes and you _wonder_ why I am so upset with what you kept from me!"

Lady balled her hands in front of her, closed her eye and shrieked, "_ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE_!"

Lady suddenly dropped straight down onto her haunches.

"Shit! Shit! SHIT!" she barked as her whole body looked to be rigid, her hands on the sides of her head. "I'm starting to fucking _blank_ again—"

Lady's head dropped back down so he could only see the top of her head.

Mal took a deep breath.

After a moment, after what sounded like a suppressed sob from Lady—he forced himself to take another look at it.

He found that he didn't like what he saw in himself. But then again, there was a lot of stuff in himself that he didn't like. Lady had kind of hit the nail on the head earlier about it.

But still—

When Lady had gone quiet—when she at last pulled her head up out of her hands looking at the mess on them with disgust—

"Alright—" he told her in a tired tone, "I can kinda see where you're comin from with this. But—" and he looked her right in the eye, "while I'm—kind of understandin about where you are, I'm not gonna change my thoughts about how I think that you went a bit too far with what you did but—," he kind of let it trail off after that.

Lady watched him for a moment. She then worked; it looked as if she was trying to pull herself together. At the same time she pushed herself back upright. It was an action that _appeared _to be painful but no sound escaped her lips.

Lady's look was suddenly angry, her tone sharp. "Answer this Captain; will you ever withhold information from me again?"

That startled Mal—

Lady's expression was even sharper. "One of my first thoughts about the lot of you Captain is how dodgy your whole operation is. I now can understand why and after the amount of time I've spent with you I can even empathize with it."

Lady's eye went hard again. "But the fact remains Captain, that you once looked me in the eye on this very Bridge, telling me unequivocally that you will kill me if I turn out to be someone whom you fear. I think I said it at the time but if not forgive me; I told you that something told me that I find that kind of honesty most refreshing. That moment came after we supposedly reached an 'understanding' about being honest with each other. Now I find that you have not been honest with me about everything—in fact there are now two examples, this and your Marshall's revelation. Must I now have additional doubts?"

She shook her head, suddenly the anger coming into her voice again. "Considering that one of those 'lapses' on your part turns out to be something so important to me personally as well as being a vital key to the restoration of my memories," the volume of her voice started to climb, "how do you think I should react—" She then clamped down on the anger _hard_.

Once she regained her composure, she gave Mal a heated look. "Regardless, as of now I would daresay that after this you will never ever think about doing something similar to me again."

Mal looked at Lady for a moment. Again—he had to grudgingly nod. "Alright—as I said, I see your point, mostly the part 'bout how maybe you could of come farther now if you knew earlier." He gave Lady an 'unhappy' eye as he added, "can't say that I agree with some of it but I can see just how bad it would seem from where you sit."

His eyes grew a little harder, "I'll be clear that I don't like it—and I don't think I ever will. But I've had to swallow such things before when it turns out that I'm wrong—and I'll admit as far as this goes that I'm wrong—that I was wrong all along. And I'll tell you now that other than the thing with the Marshall, I haven't kept anythin from you. I just couldn't figure a good way to tell that to you. I'll admit that there's too many things about you that make me jumpy. But I won't do it again."

Lady held his gaze for a moment—then nodded.

Mal managed a snort. "Do you always play this rough?"

She snorted back. "It would do you well to remember Captain that I am being on my best behavior here in your Verse. If I was home—well—our conversation about the use of deadly force showed you that I can be extremely obstinate about the things I believe in." Lady waved one hand around the room saying, "and you have seen several examples in the past hour of what could only be described as a fairly formidable temper." She gave him a 'grim' smile. "As I said, I didn't do exceptionally well in the anger management portion of my upbringing—and something tells me that I haven't been that much better as an adult."

She took a moment to look down at her hands then turned her head around to both sides (wincing in pain as she did so), apparently to see if she had smeared some of the mess from her hands on the sides of the co-pilot console. Satisfied that she hadn't, she leaned her butt back against it.

"Something else tells me Captain, that my time in the mercenaries made me somewhat fixated in several ways. Due to what I told you about being the Iron Bitch and Ice Maiden, you might also assume that that is much of what caused me not to be a 'people person'." She then looked up at him. "I have discussed some of this with Zoe and Kaylee. For several reasons Captain, the person you see before you is not the true me."

Mal looked at her, clearly not liking/understanding what it was that she was saying.

Lady returned that look with a grim smile. "As I said sir, I am being on my best behavior. Additionally you could say that I am in 'survival' mode with heightened awareness as well as other possible 'differences' from what could be said would be my 'normal' behavior and reactions." The smile then left her face. "But the bottom line sir, is that—if I am in fact sixty five or so years old—then I have spent my entire life from age eight on either training or fighting. Many of those aboard including yourself have described me as dangerous—and as my awareness of myself slowly returns—you were right in doing so."

Lady then fastened her eye on him. "The most important part that you should consider Captain, is that while I knew that I have a different universe to return to—and I am sorry if I cannot convince you that it is real—I now _know_ that I have a _family_ that I need to return to as well."

Mal blinked as Lady's voice choked on those last words. She seemed to struggle for a moment before—

"Whatever it was that I did to my husband—however I insulted or disrespected him—I know that I belong at his side. I must at the very least go back and apologize to him for whatever it was that I did to him."

Lady took a moment to compose herself before she again looked at Mal.

"And just so you know Captain, in regards to both my feelings and my...need for my husband—I told you that he is my anchor for much of my psyche. You have now seen a part of me that his presence helps control. I _was_ the Iron Bitch and Ice Maiden for almost a decade making me a very not-nice person. I have a temper that I try very hard to control as when I lose that temper I also lose...a certain amount of care regarding proper social and personal standards which leads me to something much more than not being nice—"

She gave him was could only be called a wolf-like smile, "in other words Captain, as you now have experience a direct first-hand example, I become a vindictive bitch who will do whatever she feels is necessary to 'even' a perceived wrong and who also believes in the use of the maximum amount of available force to accomplish such a result."

She took a moment to close her eye and get 'calm' before, "you would do well to remember that sir. Both my dark side and my need to return to where I am from will not somehow disappear and please be aware that I do mean what I say—I will find some way to return to my universe or die trying." She gave him a smile which wasn't a smile. "In the meantime sir, you should think about the future and the possibility that this will not be the last time that I might have what some might call a...adverse reaction to a specific event. For just because I am here in your Verse—and while I truly am attempting to be on my best behavior—I can tell you with no uncertainty given what we have just gone through that there are certain things which will set me off no matter how much discipline I might normally display. What those are—unfortunately I cannot give you a list but after everything that has happened in the past few days I'm sure you can speculate on some of them. And I think that it would be given that if another like event happens—well—as in the case of what we have here, to say that it will be very obvious to those about me will be an understatement."

Lady then gave Mal a smile that was both 'wistful' and 'evil'. "For you information Captain, something tells me that one of the functions that my husband performs is keeping my more impulsive moments in check—that long-damaged, dark, vindictive, total/complete _bitch_ side of me—he steps in between to add some sanity when it comes to things that annoy me or make me angry." The 'evil' part of the smile grew as she added, "you might be able to appreciate Captain that when I get...exceptionally angry, at times like that I have a tendency to prefer that the thing which prompted that anger be disassembled at the earliest possible moment with say...a tactical nuclear warhead."

Mal—it took him a moment to realize—

—_maximum amount of available force—_

—that she _wasn't_ joking about the nuke.

_She says that as if she's got a dozen of those kinds of things stored away in her closet._

"I'll keep that in mind in the future," was all he said hoping the shiver which ran through him was not visible.

Lady again fixed her eye on Mal. "Are we then done with it sir? I don't think that either of us considers us 'even' as far as what we've done to each other because how we feel about the events is too disproportionate to what the other of us feels. But as I said, I wish to be able to move beyond this and continue to work together."

Mal just gave her a look—

After which a long moment passed—

Lady sighed, dropped her head and said in a most neutral tone, "it may well be that after this sir, you might believe that it would be in the best interest of your ship, crew and yourself to…cut me loose. Let me go on my own way." Her eye came up to look at him. "I would completely understand if you did that Captain. Given what I have just put you through it would seem to be the safest thing to do."

Her head came back up, she shook it (with a grimace of pain) as if trying to clear the wild hair from her face. "You may also wish to do so since you now know that I am less than…willing…to quietly go along with some of the ways you conduct your business and/or deal with your subordinates." She locked her one eye with his, "It is clear now isn't Captain that there are things with which I will not defer to your authority nor will I subordinate my ideals and honor to you or your Verse. You now know that despite my being 'quiet' about many things that I am opinionated and that some of those opinions—such as my feelings toward your Alliance—are less than correct in your view."

Lady just held his eyes after that until he nodded. She then gave him a matching nod before saying, "given that Captain, it probably is better if I go off on my own. It would both relieve you of the burden of having to worry about me 'turning' on you, of worrying about if whoever brought me to your Verse is actively searching for me, of you having to worry about encountering persons in authority who might have questions considering my lack of any local identity or history—"

Mal's head was gently nodding at this as if he was agreeing.

"But," and Lady's voice was very pointed at that word, "I am asking that you allow me to continue with you and your ship."

"And why is that?" Mal drawled.

A small smile came to her face.

"Because I am—despite my willingness to face you head on when I'm 'ticked'—an asset to your ship and crew in as far as my work in the galley, my maintaining the cleanliness and order of the living spaces, my assisting Kaylee within Engineering; all of which is done with an attitude generally lacking surliness and half-hearted dedication to the task at hand."

Mal just grunted at her, "we got by before you with no problem. We could do it again."

The small smile remained on her face. "I have no doubt that you could and would Captain. After all I will not be here forever as I have now confirmed my determination to return 'home' by any means possible. But I would submit that you would not _want _to do that just as _I_ would not want to do that. Honestly Captain I would…miss those aboard this vessel. I realize that I may not be as good a companion as I might be back in my galaxy with my full memory available but I try and I think I succeed. I serve a purpose here…and that is a very important thing to me; more important than you can possibly know. I hope that I am a good influence on Kaylee and River." She stopped as if embarrassed by what she had just said. She then added, "I would hope that you sir would not wish me to go because of the _real_ reason you invited me along for in the first place."

Mal's eyebrow went up. Because he knew what she was talking about.

"You meanin my 'little voice' tellin me to keep you—and my…curiosity about just what and how you are? Don't you think that's pushin it considerin what you've done to me? Talk about _my_ ego will you? You ain't got a leg to stand on there."

Lady's eye narrowed, "when placed against what you've 'done' to me Captain? Can you honestly tell me what _you're_ reaction would be if our positions had been reversed? If information which _you_ considered so vital was withheld—and please understand that I really do acknowledge your reasoning behind not telling me _at that time _—or your honor was threatened by lack of understanding when a deep-seated concept of one's Oath of Loyalty was called into question? What would _your_ feelings be under those circumstances?"

Mal just blinked at that.

Lady waited a beat before, "I get the impression that you consider yourself to be so jaded Captain—and the reality is is that that may _be_ the reality—you _are_ that jaded—but I also believe given what I have seen of you as well as the many stories that have been related by the others on board regarding the compassion and responsibility that you try so hard to conceal—"

Mal threw up an angry hand, "enough of that _gos se—"_

Lady just watched him with what looked like a 'sad' expression. She did so for so long he was finally forced to growl at her—

"What?"

"So how would you feel if our positions had been reversed Captain Reynolds?"

Mal's lips narrowed into a hard line. Which was enough to answer her question.

The small smile was back on her face. "We are quite different—you and I Captain—but at the same time there are several areas where we are alike or have experienced things which almost no one else has experienced. As I believe I said before, I have been where you have been before—than I went beyond that place. But then something pulled me back—and that hasn't happened to you yet. It may happen to you still or it may never happen. But I sincerely and fervently hope that it does happen for there is too much passionate and spirit within you Captain for it to be lost to your Verse forever."

Mal turned his head away from her gaze.

There was a long moment—

"This dispute," Lady said in a very serious tone, "was between the two of us regarding our ethics and beliefs Malcolm. If you wonder, I will tell you that I still respect your authority and position as Captain of this vessel and will continue to do so. I also respect your—I guess the only way to say it would be 'balls'—in as far as I can't help but be aware that you had to have at least the idea that I could have thoroughly kicked your ass up between your ears without breaking into a sweat—no brag, just fact—and I don't have an issue with your 'attack from behind' on my person because that is the only sane way for someone like you to try and take someone like me—again I'm not bragging, merely stating a fact. In addition I would venture to say that at one time or another—either when you were a sergeant with the Browncoats or in dealing with Jayne—that you have either said similar words or held the exact type of thoughts—on being the biggest and baddest around. It's normal for soldiers or Captains like us; part of the job description really."

Now a real smile came to her face. "I appreciate that kind of dedication to your own beliefs. But know that I submit to your authority willingly Captain because I have seen that you are worthy of that submission on my part. You may not care about that—but from where I come from something tells me that that is no small accomplishment."

Her look softened. "So Captain, here we are. Where do we go from here?"

Mal took a real long, slow, deep breath. "I'm crazy I know." He fixed her with an angry glare, "Yeah, I'll agree that what you think is fair and what I think is fair ain't never gonna match. But as I said, I think I can see your point and I know that I was wrong. Bein that it's clear to me that you can see how I feel 'bout it but that you intend to hold your ground on it, while I don't think I'll ever be good with what you did—I can at least move on past it." His look became a little harder, "but I'm gonna tell you plainly to never—"

Lady shook her head, her eye holding his, her tone going low, "don't go there Captain. Just like in my stand on the use of Deadly Force, I will not restrict myself from any plan or path that I feel is necessary. I will defer and respect your authority as Captain as long as it doesn't cross one of my lines—as I would expect would be the same if our positions were reversed."

Mal glared at her—_she's right 'bout that damn her that I wouldn't give up my own feelins if she was the Captain._

Lady glared back just as hard.

Causing Mal to have the thought, _finally found someone just as stubborn, bull-headed and hard assed as you are Malcolm! And unlike some of the ones you've met in your travels that were close—someone like Badger—she doesn't need others to kick ass for her; she can do it all by her lonesome._

He waved anything further away with his hand. "Fine," was all he said.

Lady visibly relaxed

Mal took another minute looking everywhere _but_ at Lady before he said, "you won't be passin any of this along to the others. Zoe knows and understands but the rest—"

"You have my word on that sir."

Amazingly enough, even after all that had happened, Mal found that he still trusted her word. He gave her a nod of agreement.

With that, Lady almost _sagged_ against the side of the co-pilots console as if she was only now allowing herself to feel everything that had been done to her. Inwardly Mal winced for he had been in a similar condition more than once.

After a moment, Lady pushed herself fully upright (with a deep groan); Mal thought she might be on her way over to the Bridge hatch to open it up.

"Um—" Mal managed as he stood up, his movement was enough to bring Lady to a stop.

"Sir?" she asked.

Mal squared his shoulders, took a deep breath—

"Hit me."

Lady managed not to blink—but the tone of her voice was incredulous, "excuse me?"

Mal sighed heavily. "The ankle and wrist ain't enough and no one will be able to tell anythin bout the punch to the gut. If I come outta here without a visible scratch while you look—" he had to stop uncomfortably—

"Anyway," he went on, "I won't hear the end of it. They'll all come down on me for you lookin so beat while I—"

Lady almost looked amused. "You want _me_ to hit _you_ so you're bruised and bloody so Inara and Kaylee and the Shepherd and maybe even Zoe don't turn a cold shoulder to you for your 'abuse' of me." She gave _Serenity's_ Captain what could only be described as a feral grin. "Told you that I'm sometimes not a nice person Captain. Seems to me that this could be just a tad bit more of revenge—"

Then the smile faded. "However Captain, I will not attempt to do that. As much as it appeals to me at the moment—I think you loosened one of my teeth by the way—there is also something else that I was about to mention. I was about to do so as my final word considering this evening. Simply put—Jayne."

Now her expression was very serious. "My guess is that he could well be plotting my demise in some manner where he could make it look like an accident or maybe a 'friendly fire' incident. However again, if by chance he finds out that you have managed 'tame' me—put me in my place as it were while at the same time, rendered me in this condition (she waved a hand at her bloody fully swollen face) with minimal damage to yourself, he may be placated enough to let things pass until his own ire is reduced to something manageable for all of us."

Mal was momentarily skeptical. But then he remembered what he had been thinking when he'd told Zoe to give Lady a gun. Because she was right and all things considered, he wasn't sure at this point just how well his own threat against Jayne would stand up against the Merc's embarrassment and fury.

"You got a definite point there," he said but then he looked back at Lady, "but somehow I don't think that even he'll buy it if I don't have so much as a black eye or a bruised jaw."

Lady seemed to consider this for a moment. "This is true," she finally said. "Considering his nature and personality—his 'cunning' as Zoe described it—he could well be suspicious if you were completely unmarked." She looked back up at Mal. "You really want this? There'll be no problems because of it between us."

Mal shook his head a little nervously. "I'm askin for it. I—think it would be best all things considered."

"Fine" was all Lady said.

Mal must have blinked at the moment Lady unleashed the jab for he never saw it coming. It did everything he hoped—split his lip, bloodied his nose, his cheek would be like a grapefruit and that eye would almost swell shut—again.

Of course he couldn't appreciate it at the moment, for he was out cold on the Bridge deck.

Lady had been trained to strike since she was nine years old. As with having to punch through the wall/ceiling of the Dining Area to rescue Kaylee, she knew exactly where and how hard she had to deliver a strike to another human to achieve the results she desired. She almost smiled at the sight. Then, with a painful groan she bent over to rearrange the Captain so that there was no chance that his windpipe would be clogged—after everything that happened it simply wouldn't do if he choked to death from the blood coming from his nose or mouth.

"Enough of this pratting about," she muttered as she slowly/painfully moved over next to the co-pilot chair, easing herself down onto the deck next to it. Then she waited. Her good eye partially closed as she started the mental concentration to set up what she was about to do.

After just a bit, she heard Mal groan—he started to move a little—and with that she gave herself a mental nod. She had meant what she said as far as dealing with Jayne so it would not do if she was the one who emerged 'victorious' from the Bridge. She didn't like what she was about to do but it also wasn't the first time she'd done something of this nature either. As she had mentioned in passing to the Captain, something told her that she had worked several times in 'deep undercover' jobs for her husband. When one was that deep, there were things that one had to do to maintain that cover—even if they weren't pleasant.

So, even as the man across from her slowly started to push himself upright; Lady; sitting on her butt on the floor in front of it turned toward the co-pilots chair—

With that, she suddenly jerked herself forward, smacking her face above the already closed eye into the sharp front edge of the co-pilots chair even as she gave a recently remembered mental 'trigger'—

Which meant that she would be found unconscious, an gory loss-of-conscious type of wound on her face—

She hoped she would dream of her husband—even if she couldn't remember it later.


	32. Aftermath

Thirty Two – Aftermath

* * *

Only Zoe knew just how uncomfortable she was at the moment because—despite the completely calm and focused exterior she was showing—she actually had to resist tapping one foot due to her nervousness. She knew that her unruffled, solid 'front' was the only thing keeping Kaylee halfway quiet or her husband from charging off to do something he probably shouldn't do—

So at the moment, she was very glad that the Shepherd was quietly reading his bible, Simon was pacing along one side of the Dining Area and River was still in her chair at the Dining table (a sullen, angry look continuing to darken her features) so the First Mate didn't have to deal with any problems from those individuals.

Zoe herself was waiting to the side of the short stairs leading through the forward hatch of the Dining Area. From there—leaning against the hatch frame—she could keep a very close eye on the Bridge hatch at the other end of the forward passageway. Inside her head she was counting down on a clock, biding the time before surrendering to the situation which would mean getting the emergency breaker bar for the Bridge hatch out—

Zoe was far beyond beginning to wonder the reason why the two problem children were still locked in the Bridge. Without much hope she still 'hoped' that the Shepherd had been right—that the two of them really were still talking—

Because the other possibility that was most likely to her—the one put forward by her husband—the one she was pretty much mentally settling upon—was the possibility that the _both_ of them were hurt and/or incapacitated—if she didn't have the boundless faith in her Captains ability to survive the unsurvivable—

_But…after all this time_, Zoe had to wonder, _if Mal had somehow managed to ambush and take down Lady, he'd have to come out of such a moment whole simply because it would have to be an all-or-nothin strike. Lady is simply too dangerous in such close quarters in any case where she wasn't taken completely out on the first shot._

That thought had logically led to the next one. _If Mal had managed to ambush Lady and inflict some kind of telling damage…but it hadn't taken Lady all the way down on the first hit_—

Lady could have very well have struck back out of pure combat-conditioned reflex causing serious if not worse damage to _Serenity's_ Captain as she did so. That could mean that Zoe's waiting was causing or had already had caused the one or both of them too—

Zoe took in a deep breath suddenly ready to advance her own countdown—just in case—

Then her head snapped over at the sounds of boots coming up the forward companionway—

_Oh God, not now—_

Jayne came around the corner into the passageway.

His eyes immediately widened at the sight of Zoe. He stopped in the middle of the passageway looking past her into the Dining Area, questions coming into those eyes—

Even at this distance, Zoe could tell that he had been drinking (still) but after all the time spent together; she could tell that he wasn't really drunk—well, at least not sloppy drunk.

Which at the moment was a bad thing. Because he was less than likely to just head to his bunk to pass out if he wasn't three shades to the wind—

Sure enough, he walked up to the outside portion of the hatch, more questions coming into his eyes as how everyone was gathered and apparently waiting—his mind also registered the looks his arrival was causing in the expressions of everyone there who was now looking at _him _(except River whose eyes didn't leave the table top).

"Somethin goin on?" he kind of half growled. "Where's Mal and the Bitch?"

"They're on the Bridge having a little talk." Zoe figured that much of the truth wouldn't be a problem.

Jayne glanced back at the closed Bridge hatch. It sounded like he grunted something that Zoe couldn't hear. He then looked back at Zoe, "ain't nothin good gonna come outta her stayin around Zoe. It'd be in everybody's best interests for her to be gone." He glanced back at all the other eyes that were watching him from inside of the Dining Area. "She's the one messin it all up, upsettin everythin on board. We were fine without her and there's gonna be more trouble—and just not from me—if she stays. Mark my word."

With that, he turned and started toward his cabin. Zoe watched him go, not realizing that she was holding her breath.

Jayne made it to his ladder, pushing it open with his foot—

And at that moment—just as Zoe had subconsciously feared—Murphy's Law put in an appearance—

The lock on the Bridge hatch 'clacked'—

Jayne hesitated with one foot on the rung—

The hatch came open—

Everybody including River came to their feet in the Dining Area—

Zoe held her breath—

Mal came into the hatchway, his hands on both sides of the frame—

The blood on his face—

Jayne actually smiled. "What the _di yu_ happened to you? Did the peace and love and everybody's all friends thing fail?"

"Doctor," Zoe said over her shoulder as she was already moving, she was down the passageway before Jayne had finished his statement. She was trying _not_ to think what she was about to find but she _knew_ one thing—_don't let Jayne see—_

"So how about it Mal? Did she teach you a lesson?"

Zoe couldn't help but grimace. Jayne was right behind her, coming up the ladder after her. "Jayne," she said back over her shoulder intending to tell him—

"Not a chance Zoe," he interrupted her. "Wild horses couldn't keep me from seein this."

"Jayne," at the tone in Mal's voice, Zoe came to a stop even though she was only an arm length down the ladder from him, "this ain't your business." That part stopped Jayne, as did the fact that the Merc was now close enough to see the look in the Captains eyes. Jayne remembered that look only too well, the look Mal had given him through the window in the Cargo Bay airlock door as he had felt the air go cold and thin as _Serenity_ climbed out of the atmo of Ariel. Mal's next words sealed the deal—

"And unless you want business with me, you'll let it be."

The Merc took an involuntary step back down the ladder raising his hands if deference, "okay Mal, no sweat, whatever you want."

Mal's eyes then lifted to look down on the rest of those aboard, gathered in a tight group just back of the foot of the ladder—

All of them looking up at him with angry accusing eyes—except for the Shepherds who were deeply disturbed and disappointed.

"Where's Lady?" Kaylee called at him in a worried/angry tone.

The Captain of _Serenity_ was once again less than happy. Waking to find Lady out cold had _not_ been part of his plan—not that he'd had a plan—but it made him look more the villain than he had anticipated with Lady's idea of creating a situation which would defuse Jayne. Even though it was clear that it had worked as Lady had hoped; that Jayne had immediately accepted the outcome, everyone else's reactions toward him personally appeared to be even worse that he had feared if he had come out of the fracas looking unharmed.

Mal weakly jerked his thumb back into toward the Bridge—"she's—"

Before he could get another word out, Simon, River, Kaylee and Wash were storming up past him.

"Hey!" he yelled, thrusting out one hand to stop the charge—

Only to have Zoe grab and defect his arm with a warning look screaming from her eyes.

Her eyes held his as the others rushed past him onto the Bridge.

"LADY!" came Kaylee's voice from inside—

"What the HELL happened to MY Bridge?" Wash's cried just as loud.

Mal closed his eyes, his mental pain matching at the moment his physical pain—

His eyes (well, just like Lady, at the moment it was almost 'eye' because of the one rapidly swelling closed) then opened.

Zoe gave him a smoking look before releasing his arm to move up past him onto the Bridge. That left Mal with only two people to look at.

Jayne had a huge smirk on his face that was about to break out into a full blown grin—

_Well_ Mal thought, _I guess that part of it worked better than expected. That'd be a good thing._

And the Shepherd—

While Books look was still very heavy with 'disapproval', there was something else there as well. It took Mal a moment to pin it down.

It was questioning disbelief.

_The Shepherds not buyin it_ Mal realized. _Can only hope that'd be a good thing as well._

There was no indication of such thoughts in the Shepherds voice however when Book said, "it seems as if the good Doctor will be...occupied for some time Captain. Why don't you allow be to tend to that...scratch on your face?"

* * *

_You're getting to know the sight of this overhead way too well._

Lady reflected on this for a moment as she lay on her back on the Infirmary table staring up at the ceiling above her.

_But, going back to the first time you saw it when you originally woke up here, you know that you've spent a real healthy—or would it be UNhealthy—amount of time inside various hospitals, infirmaries and sick bays. Of course you can only see so much of it right now through the one eye—_

For the eye below where she had busted her head against the co-pilots chair was now screwed tightly closed, a hot-poker fist of rock-hard pain among all the other various injuries her body was currently telling her about.

Of course, that hot point was _not_ being affected by the chilly sub-zero atmosphere that currently filled the Infirmary.

The Doctor was not at all happy—

His Sister was even less happy than that—

The Shepherd who had just joined them after apparently tending to the Captain was definitely not pleased—

The Engineer was most assuredly not delighted by the turn of events—

_Not that you're especially joyous about having a pretty good sized wound on your eyebrow/forehead sutured without anesthesia—_

_But at the same time—_

She grimaced as she turned her head slightly to the side—

Only to have the Doctor reach over, grip the sides of her head firmly and move her head back toward the upright position.

"Why are you moving like that?" he asked her in a testy tone. "You're going too—"

"When my head is straight," she shot back just as testy, "it's lying on the wound on the back of my head and _that_ hurts worse than my neck does!"

"Oh," Simon's face was suddenly self-conscious. He also sounded very apologetic, "I'm sorry, I'd forgotten about that one from when you fell last night."

Lady looked like she was silently counting to ten before she replied, "that's alright Doctor. I don't expect you to be able to keep track of everything I manage to do to myself if it's not actually bleeding at the moment."

"The rest of it shouldn't of happened," she heard Kaylee say in an 'almost whisper' which could only be called 'surly'.

"Please Kaylee—" Lady's tone was still testy. The Engineer jumped at that tone. She'd forgotten and hadn't expected Lady to hear the comment but her internal ire caused her to go ahead, come out and say what was on her mind.

"It's true! I don't care how mad he was! He had no call to hurt you as bad as this."

Lady weighed her mental options for a moment, then said tiredly, "two things Kaylee; considering what I did to him he had every right to wish to do things much worse than what has happened and…he is not purposely responsible for some my injuries."

Kaylee blinked, clearly not understanding.

"Most of what you see I...let the Captain do in order to satisfy his anger. I deserved it and I neither blame him or begrudge him for it—and I would please beg you not to do so either." Lady then turned her head further in order to look directly at the Engineer— "the rest of what you see here I did to myself—and there was a specific reason for that."

Now Kaylee's mouth was hanging open. "You did—you did something like this to—to _yourself_ —"

However, both Zoe and Book nodded their heads as if they understood.

"Was that specific reason because of Jayne?" Zoe asked.

"Yes," Lady replied because despite her thick lips and swollen tongue, it was still less painful than nodding her head.

Kaylee looked first at the Shepherd than back to Lady with a startled expression. At the same time River was staring at Lady as if the young girl was trying to see through the woman's skull. Then the young girl nodded murmuring, "remarkable," as if finally understanding something long suspected.

"What?" Kaylee was about all she managed to say. She wasn't sure how or why Jayne had just entered the conversation and what she could guess she didn't like the taste of. Trying to gain a better understanding she looked over at Simon to see if he could give her a clue but he was looking at Lady with an incredulous stare.

Book in the meantime, crossed his arms into a contemplating pose before asking, "did you plan it this way from the beginning?"

"I contemplated it as a part of several different options right from the beginning," was Lady's slow painful/tired reply. "It wasn't until I actually saw how the Captain was reacting in the Dining Area upon my return that I made my decision."

Book shook his head. "You are a strange and unusual woman," was his comment.

Kaylee still wasn't really getting it—or maybe it was that she didn't _want_ to get it. "Will someone please—" she started only to stop when Zoe laid a hand on her arm. The First Mate didn't say anything but the gentle but forceful look she game the Engineer caused Kaylee to subside for the moment.

Then—

"If you understand," Lady said, taking pains to talk through the pain clearly and with as much force as she could, "then please take it into account in your dealings with the Captain." She tried her best to meet everyone's eyes with her eye. "Remember what I said about what happened being the fault of the both of us. And from a personal viewpoint, the results are well worth whatever pain and discomfort I am currently experiencing as long as Cobb continues to think the way he apparently does now." She then looked directly at both Kaylee and River. "Remember, what the Shepherd just said is correct. I _am_ a strange and unusual woman. As such, something tells me that at times I have intentionally placed myself in the way of physical harm because I know that if whatever it was didn't kill me, there is more than a good chance that I will survive the event and eventually heal. And if doing so; if intentionally taking damage accomplishes my goal, so much the better."

Zoe, Book and River all nodded their heads at this. Simon looked appalled; Kaylee still unbelieving. Book then asked, "has something come back to you then in as far as your healing ability?"

Both of the Tam siblings eyebrows went up.

"Only things like what I just said," Lady told them all. "That's it's something that I can actually use as a tool at times; that I can risk and take damage and injury that 'normal's' cannot as an option to attain a goal—that and the fact that my healing ability is the result of a voluntary life choice on my part. Some kind of...directly imposed mutation of the body."

Both Simon and River looked at her, clearly startled/surprised/wondering—

"A mutation?" asked Simon—

"But you said it was voluntary—" River said. "Both of those facts imply that it could be done to others as well."

"Do you know what part of the body is mutated?" Simon sounded like he wanted to beg for the answer.

Lady raised one of her hands to stop any further questions. "Sorry. Didn't mean to temp you with a taste of the fruit and all but that's really all that's come back to me at the moment."

Both of the Tam siblings looked a little crushed. Simon was _so_ crushed that he hadn't realized just how 'clear and cognizant' River had sounded at that moment.

"But," Zoe mused out loud. "It allows you to take chances with injury that—you used the term 'normal's', that bein normal people like us—injury's and such that we might not otherwise be able to take." She thought another moment then one eyebrow shot up—

"That's why you were able to do that…thing in the bar fight—dislocate your shoulder in order to get away—you did it without thinkin maybe. Because you knew it wouldn't be a lasting thing."

Lady looked surprised as if that incident hadn't occurred to her but after her own moment she looked to Zoe saying, "I do believe that could very well be right. Something tells me that that is something I would do if necessary."

Book shook his head again, "so it allows you to take injury and recover—and that recovery is so completely that you don't even have any scars to show in the end." He shifted his arms about as he mentally wrestled with something before, "does that last part have...unexpected consequences?"

Kaylee, Simon and River all looked a little confused with that question—

Lady on the other hand—

"Yes it does Shepherd." She raised her head slightly so she could look down toward where he was beyond the foot of the bed. "I suspect by that statement that you are well aware of how visible scars—wounds from battle—might play within a culture where war and/or violence is a primary part of someone's life—how scars can be a 'badge of honor' or 'marks of experience' which can be accepted and turned into a form of respect by some people." She eased her head back down. "Something tells me from what little I remember of my early training that my 'clan' did not believe in such machismo but many of the mercenary units that I worked with did lend weight to such things—which could cause problems for me as...discretion toward my mutation was required for reasons which have yet to come back to me."

Everyone present kind of looked at each other as this was new information to everyone but Zoe. Seeing the looks on their faces, Lady snorted, "okay, let's just say that my...discussion with the Captain brought back a fair amount of memories about one portion of my life—but it is only a portion and not a pleasant one at that. But in as far as my 'mutation'; something does tell me that where I come from, despite the fact that the change is a voluntary one (she was looking at River as she said this) that could be done to anyone, very few undergo it. Something tells me that there are significant drawbacks and side effects along with...social and cultural issues like what the Shepherd and I just mentioned with the mercenaries." She took a deep breath before finishing with, "so in the end, it's not for everyone—nor should it be."

"Yyeesssss," Book mused. "I can well see some of those…problems that would come to pass given that kind of situation."

"Regardless," Lady told them, "I beg that you both minimize your anger toward the Captain and be aware of Cobb."

Kaylee looked decidedly unhappy again. "What is it that you think Jayne—?"

Zoe held up a stopping hand. "If you don't mind Kaylee, we'll talk about it later." When the Engineer gurglingly nodded her accepting not to continue with it for the moment, the First Mate then looked to Lady, "I take it that if we let the Captain totally off the hook then maybe Jayne would figure out that he's being...led down the garden path?"

Lady simply nodded. Zoe then looked around at everyone present, "so that means that we all should still give him—the Captain—a bit of a cold shoulder—"

"I won't need to pretend to give him a cold shoulder," River muttered. "He's been stupid about this whole thing all along."

"River—" Simon told her in a warning tone.

"Well he has," she shot back at him.

"Again I say, peace little one."

River's eyes dropped down to Lady who had turned her head more to the side to give her a steady stare with her one good eye. River once again experience that strange (for her) feeling that Lady was peeling the top of her head open to look inside of her brain—

Once again since the start of their relationship, River had to reflect on this new feeling. Prior to her meeting Lady, the very idea of someone being able to sense her thoughts and feelings so deeply would have sent River over the edge into screams and panic—such a sensation made her think about—she couldn't remember all the times THEY had 'looked into her brain' but she—

Which was the weird part because River _knew_ that Lady could not actually see into her mind, thoughts or emotions—it just _felt_ that way and River was only beginning to understand why. At least with Lady as with her brother, River was able to handle that kind of intimacy towards her psyche because she _knew_ that there was no malice inside of either of them. But with Lady, River was becoming aware of a different sensation. With her brother, River had to deal with his love as well as his frustration, his concern along with his impatience, his caring along with his worry. At the same time, there were bits and pieces of their sibling relationship remaining—pieces that made River; the younger but smarter little sister want to tease, taunt and rebel against her brother regardless of her love, concern and caring for him and his for her.

Lady was something else and as had been said, River was only now starting to understand the mechanics of it. With both her actions and desires, River had repeatedly run smack into/rebounded off of the solid wall of experience/responsibility/dedication/drive that lived at the core of Lady beyond the memories that were misplaced. All of those together had merged into something River had never truly experienced before. Prior to the Academy, River had been use to wrapping her parents, her brother and anyone else she came across around her little finger with little effort. Her own self integrity brought on by her knowledge of just how special she was had managed to keep her from becoming an incorrigible brat but that hadn't meant that she wouldn't do whatever she could to make sure she always got her own way because—well—she _was_ special!

With Lady, all attempts at that had utterly failed. River had come to the realization that _any_ give or concession that Lady granted to her wishes or complaints came only after deep, searching consideration on Lady's part and those that were not granted never would be unless she could mount against Lady a compelling and convincing counter argument—if even then. Through these...events, River had managed to get 'glimpses' at the depth of Lady—and it both awed and frightened her. At the current moment, the fact that Lady had aggressively confronted and purposely gone after Captain Reynolds with no holds barred in-his-face ferocity while at the same time actively anticipating and/or consciously encouraging having the Captain to physically _beat_ her to achieve a balance of power between two Alpha Dogs given Captain Reynolds own well-known ferocity; that Lady would voluntarily _invite_ such injury to her own person to accomplish a stated goal showed a ruthlessness and a self-confidence that left the girl breathless. _That_ was what River had thought 'remarkable'.

River longed for that self-confidence—

And hoped that she would never have to be that ruthless—with anyone else but those who deserved it.

But at the moment River dipped her head in acknowledgement to the correction given to her by Lady. She then glanced up at her brother as she read within him his dislike that she was obeying Lady rather than him. The 'little sister' in her caused her to gave him just the smallest bit of an evil smirk.

Simon glared back at his sister for a moment before looking down at Lady, "is this what you wanted to have everyone here for?" he asked is a very…neutral tone.

"Yes," Lady replied.

"Then if that is all," he announced in a long-suffering tone, "I would like to finish without an audience."

With that, he shooed his sister and the rest of them out of the Infirmary, closing the doors against any listening—hoping that his sister didn't hang around close enough to 'read' what he was about to do—

Simon came back to the exam table with a cold pack which he lay down over Lady's closed eye—

"Just what is going on between you and my sister?"

Simon's tone couldn't have been more 'normal' but—

"Nothing that you need to worry about Doctor," Lady replied evenly. "She is curious about my issues and has provided some help in clarifying some hazy memories that she was able to read." Lady's good eye which had been closed when he'd placed the cold pack opened, looking up at him with a steady gaze. "It goes without saying from everything I've heard about from all aboard as well as my own observations of the two of you that I would be mad if I attempted to interpose myself between you and her. I may be strange and unusual Doctor but I'm not crazy. I am well aware of what could happen if you think I am a threat to her or to your relationship with her."

He was less than convinced. "Then why—what's this 'little one' thing and why does she react to you the way she does?"

"You're her brother," Lady said that as if it was a 'duh'. "Also—if I may be so humble—I probably have more than a little bit of experience dealing with marginalized persons than you have outside of an emergency room. Also, because she can 'see' so deeply into me due to my present condition there's an…honesty between us that unfortunately goes beyond your sibling bond Doctor." Lady's eye narrowed, "that's not meant as an insult to your relationship with her Doctor. It's just a simple statement of fact and I would hope that you are mature enough to deal with it."

Simon's eyes had gone cold and distant. "I might be able to deal with it if I knew just what you are, but I don't. And everything I've speculated on could—in one way or another—spell trouble for me, her or us. If I can't trust you, why should I allow you to get close to my sister?"

"Given that statement," was Lady's very neutral reply, "why haven't you tried to keep us apart before this? If you fear me, why haven't you warned River away from me?"

"I just might have to do that—"

Lady's eye narrowed further. She considered for a moment—

"Doctor," her tone had gone just a degree cooler, "I've just been through what could lightly be described as a 'battle royal' with the Captain over our different ways of doing things. I really don't feel like getting into another war at the moment and I really don't think you wish to see me as the Captain saw me a short time ago—a very angry woman. It may be difficult for you to do so but given the last couple of months you are way beyond even being able to realistically stop any relationship between your sister and myself. And the two of us getting into a 'pissing contest' over it is at the moment a very bad idea as well."

Simon came completely upright in reaction to that statement—but he didn't back up and his expression didn't back off.

Lady went on in the same level tone. "As I said a moment ago, I have no intention of coming between you and River—but at the same time I have no intention of holding River away from me if she comes to me—which she has. We've talked quite a bit and there are things within me that she is curious about. Being that it is not possible for me to shield the things she senses—the things she can 'read' within me—anymore than you or anybody else on board can shield themselves, I have been answering her questions as truthfully as I can."

"Questions about what?"

Lady waited a moment before, "I do believe that _that_ is between the young lady and myself."

Simon swelled visibly but before he could open his mouth—

"Spare me Doctor!" she snapped at him, clearly becoming annoyed. "Yes, you are her brother. You are also her Doctor and her Guardian but you are NOT her mother!"

"And what makes _you_—" Simon started.

"I said spare me Doctor!"

Now Simon took a half step back for the look in Lady's one good eye and turned—black.

Then the eye closed. It looked to Simon as if Lady was trying to keep her temper under control—

Which he was all for considering was Mal had looked like.

"Yes Doctor Tam—" Lady's tone was tight and clipped, "to anticipate your next broadside, I am _not_ a doctor! But while I may not have managed to graduate from medical school, something tells me that I have graduated from not one but several military academies—apparently with honors if my impressions are right—so once again I will submit to you that I am not stupid." Her eye came open with a hot gaze that pinned him solid. "At the same time Doctor, I also apparently am a career combat veteran who has been both a senior enlisted man and an officer who has had extensive training _and_ experience in dealing with wounded, crippled and damaged soldiers and YES you sister is _damaged!_ Considering that, do you think that I would do something as _asinine _as—"

"That's the problem," he snapped back at her. "Regardless of anything you say—_none_ of which you can _prove—_the fact of the matter is that I don't _know_ what you are—"

"Don't you trust your sister?"

That stopped Simon cold.

"Well—yes—but—" he stammered as he tried to get his mental feet under him.

"I think that it would suffice to say," Lady seemed to be saying for him, "that you would trust her within limits. Those limits being whatever you feel regarding as to whether she is lucid about a subject or not."

After a moment Simon had to nod that that. But—

"But," he continued verbally, "that lucidity is also subject to the condition; is she truly lucid or is it a dream or hallucination that seems lucid; _is_ lucid to her but may not be to anyone else."

Lady's eye narrowed. After a moment she nodded, "okay, I'll have to admit that you have me on that one. But I have to ask you, did you notice your sister during the discussion? The part dealing with my voluntary mutation?"

Now it was Simon's turn to narrow his eyes. "No, I'll admit that I didn't notice anything."

Lady snorted at that thinking _is this another case of someone who can't see or simply won't see something they don't want to see._

"I would submit to you Doctor that you need to step back and look to see if there are moments when your sister seems _exceptionally_ normal and when and how those moments are triggered." She noted his skeptical/guarded look which made her decide not to hold the other stroke back. "I would also submit to you Doctor that you also need to look into the possibility that as far as your sister is concerned—you can't see the forest for the trees. _Because_ you are her brother _and_ guardian in addition to her doctor. You are too close to this 'patient' Simon Tam and it is blinding you to some things which are there to be seen."

An angry glint came to Simon's eyes. But he took a very long moment as if considering—

"You know," he told Lady in a very cool, very neutral tone, "I would almost expect someone who is trying to drive a wedge between me and my sister to say something like that." He turned and kind of sauntered around the exam table as he talked. "I'm sure the scenario is well known in the vids and e-novels. Infiltrate, gain everyone's confidence, then slowly start to separate the target from its support network—

"But you don't believe that's what's happening here," Lady replied in an equally neutral tone as her eye was once again on the ceiling. "Because if you had, you wouldn't be spinning this 'scenario' to me. In fact, I'd probably already be staring at that handgun you've got stuck under the sterilizer on the counter if you thought that was really happening."

Simon was startled that she knew about the gun—then felt himself the fool. Of course she knew about it just as she had known about every other hidden weapon on board before she had gone after Reynolds. He was glad he wasn't facing her so he tried to cover his agitation over the moment by snorting and saying, "you don't pull a bluff worth a gorram—"

"I don't 'bluff' at all—"

Simon turned to meet her one good eye which was now looking at him. There he saw the truth in those words...and he involuntarily shivered at the steel and cold resolve that existed behind them. In another attempt to hide his discomfort he snorted again saying, "must make you a poor poker player."

A hint of a smile touched one corner of Lady's mouth; it was belied by the continuing hard look in her eye. "For poker I trust to luck. For everything else I trust my abilities, my wits, my friends and most importantly my family—now that I remember that I have one."

Simon watched her for another moment before, "so you're saying that I should trust my family—that being River. And because she trusts you to talk about things that she won't talk to me about—I should trust you?"

Lady held his eyes steady with her one, "I would hope that you would. And as a part of that trust, I will promise to you that I will pass along anything that I discover within your sister or am told by her that I righteously believe that River's Doctor or Guardian should know about."

Simon processed this a moment, then he looked at her with what could only be an 'unfriendly eye', "but if you think that it's something that I should know as her brother, you would withhold it from me."

"Without hesitation" she said firmly.

Simon considered this a moment before—

"I would grant you," he told her in a tight tone, "that you would probably be able to recognize what 'the Doctor' would have to know. But—how would you decide what is Guardian and what is Brother? What experience do you have—"

"I was raised," Lady told him in an authoritative tone, "in a martial clan Doctor that trained its young people by totally immersing them in the martial life at age eight. Both sexes living and working together with all the accompanying growth, social interaction _and_ conflict—good and bad—that such a situation could possibly create. Although I lost my own older brother and sister very early in my life, I had growing up literally tens of 'brothers' and 'sisters' to interact with. I know how the dynamic works. And as our instructors had to keep a very close eye on such an unruly lot, I also saw elite expert Guardians at work." She waited a moment before she added, "remember Doctor, I said a _martial_ clan. WE were _children _growing up into _teenagers—_meaning that toward the end of our training we were going through _puberty _with everything _that_ implies considering both sexes were living together in the same small camp_—who_ had live functioning _lethal_ weapons in our personal possession as well as deadly physical combat skills—our Guardians _HAD_ to know what they were doing."

For a moment a host of expressions crossed Simon's face as he processed each part of this burst of information. Considering his own life and upbringing, he was having a hard time even partially conceptualizing what she was telling him which forced him to voice the _only_ part of it that made any sense to him, "you lost a brother and sister?"

"Both were killed in an assassination attempt aimed at our father. As I was only three and had spent my first two years on my mother's homeworld I barely knew them—"

"I'm sorry," Simon told her with a sudden awkward bow even as he tried to get his mental feet going again.

Lady waved one hand at him, "ancient history Doctor." She snorted, "although I suppose that I shouldn't complain as that is a memory that has returned that isn't a nightmare." She then turned her head to look at him with her one eye. "So what's it to be Doctor. As the Captain just found out, I can be exceptionally—well I suppose the word stubborn would be appropriate—about things that I believe in. And I believe in your sister and I also believe that the 'brother' in you _might_ be stifling some aspects of her personality. I would think—all things considered—that if I am what I _think_ I am, that I might be better qualified to deal with some of the aspects of her damage than you are."

Simon's eyes got hard again. She saw this, closed her eye, brought her head back upright—

"Fine," she stated in a tired voice. "What-the fuck-ever Doctor. Have it your way. Don't ever say that I didn't at least offer to help."

Simon kind of 'jerked' at her profanity. But that didn't stop him from feeling a certain satisfaction.

"I'm only doing what I think is best for my sister," he told Lady with as 'rock certain' a tone he could manage. "Not that I appreciate your concern—but she needs to be handled by a professional."

_Not that you are one_ he said to himself. _At least not a mental health one. But I will not place any part of River's well being in anybody else's hands._

"So—I trust that you'll stop talking to River—"

With biting force she responded, "as I AM a Professional with FIFTY years of experience I don't intend to stop talking to your sister Doctor. No more than you can possibly think that River won't continue to 'read' things within me and try to make sense of them." Lady's head then snapped over fixing him with a glare. "Maybe _that's_ what you should be doing River Tam's Doctor and Guardian; stop _ignoring_ that your sister is a reader and help her _deal_ with it. At least help her interpret some of what it is that she senses."

Simon shook his head in confusion. "What do you mean? How can I help her interpret—"

Despite the fact that she didn't move from the exam table, Lady's look/tone was right in Simon's face. "I heard the story about that village which captured the two of you and what happened with they wanted to burn your sister 'the witch'. I understand the gist of what it is that she said to them that led them to believe that she was a 'witch'. Lady's eye turned accusing. "Did you _ever_ sit down with River and talk over the validity and probably meanings of what she 'read' in that village elder—how he became the head elder because he probably _murdered_ the previous one? Did you ever walk her through the incident—you can't tell me that your ER Staff and emergency medical responders don't 'debrief' when a major cluster happens—which was probably as raw and confusing to her as anything she had experienced at that point? Did you _ever_ help her try to make sense of it? Did you every attempt to help her _understand_ what happened?"

Lady's eye grew narrower. Simon had a sudden flashback to a very angry University Professor—his mentor—after the one and only time he had totally and unnecessarily screwed something up; that was the look in Lady's eye. "Did you ever attempt to show her just how dangerous that entire event was because she couldn't/didn't censor her words leading the villagers to accuse her of being a witch—or did you just wrap the blankets of cotton back around her, making like it never happened and walked her away from it all without looking back?" Her look got even more accusing as she added, "AND did you ever try to go deeper with her in as far as what happened on that criminal's space platform when she killed the three men without having to look at them? Did you even TALK to her about it or any other incident she's experienced or is _all_ of it just something that you hope will go away if you just completely ignore it?"

Simon was seething. It took him a moment to be able to ask, "who told you—?"

Lady gave him a grim smile. "As the lot of you discuss every little bit about me, let's just say that I'm equally good at ferreting out the odd piece of information. And considering my relationship with your sister and the fact that I really am trying to help her, I have been extremely curious about her history and how she interacts with the world at large."

Simon closed his eyes, fighting to control his anger, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. _Kaylee and Inara and Book and probably Wash and maybe Zoe—all of them—_

_Does that mean that I have to tell River she can't talk anybody on board?_

Simon wasn't stupid. He could easily see the morass this was headed towards—

Forcing him to—at the moment—put a brake on his temper; acknowledge that the woman at on the exam table seemed poised to do things that would be difficult for him to counter without him taking his sister completely off of the boat—

As much as he had always longed to do that he also recognized how impossible it was.

That fact didn't change the way he was feeling at the moment. He was more than angry inside—but after all the months on board _Serenity_ dealing with all the less than savory persons aboard her as well as the...interesting individuals they encountered in their travels—he had at least learned when to _appear_ to back down—

He didn't want too—but at the same time—inside of himself there was a part of his mind/ego that recoiled from her words. He had somewhat admitted to himself in the months since the revelation which forced him to confront the possibility of his sister being psychic that it was something he really didn't want to deal with. Was he now going to pay the consequence for that refusal?

Another reason to back down. He couldn't deal with this at the moment. He'd have to find time to maybe think it out—

Maybe—

Simon shook his head, dropping his hand and opening up his eyes. "What did the Shepherd call you? A strange and unusual woman?"

"I think that is a given," was Lady's cool reply.

Simon waited a minute more before, thinking intently, trying to find a way which would give him the best chance to win this one or at least reach a draw in his favor. Finally, when no brilliant sparks of thought came to him, he had to settle on, "will you really tell me if there's something I need to know about?"

Lady gave him a very firm 'eye'. "You have my word Simon Tam."

He waited another moment before asking, "so, taking into account your...stubbornness which I assume means that you are not going to change from how you intend to deal with this, I guess that I'm going to have to agree to those terms at this time." He paused for a moment, the look on his face accenting the 'at this time' part. He then took a deep breath, "so—as a test of this new little agreement between the three of us—can you tell me if there is anything that you've discovered or have been told about my sister that you think Rivers Doctor or Guardian needs to know about?" At this point, if he could gain any information or insight about his sister that he could even marginally ponder, then he might be able to consider the whole incident a draw.

She gave him a very pointed look. "Only that River is smarter that you think she is even in her less-than-lucid periods. Did you ever consider that your last attempt at new medication failed because she took active steps to combat what she felt were its negative side effects?"

Simon was rooted in place, jaw hanging open—

* * *

Wash was finishing putting all of the cleaning supplies away when the airlock hatch at the forward end of the Cargo Bay suddenly groaned, coming open. He went about completing his task as there could only be one possibility as to who would be returning so late to the boat. Not that the information filled him with any sort of 'joy and gaiety'.

After the barely conscious form of Lady had been taken away, Wash had spent a considerable amount of time and effort in cleaning up the mess on his Bridge. He'd been surprised when his wife poked her head in though the hatch to announce that a dinner had been thrown together and he should come to get his share. During the meal he (and finally Kaylee) had been brought up to speed on all the various facets of what he could only think of as a 'really weird day'—perhaps the weirdest he could remember since signing aboard _Serenity_—which in and of itself was saying something.

Zoe had done most of the talking with Kaylee asking most of the questions. Lady had been absent of course as had Mal and Jayne (and Inara). Of the rest, Simon had been a little too quiet in Wash opinion. In fact he had spent most of the meal apparently trying _not_ to look at his sister which had caused her to spend most of the time staring back at him. Book had only spoken when he thought some kind of clarification had been needed.

Now with it late and everyone else gone off to their separate quarters Wash worked at getting everything properly put away. With the movement of the hatch he was suddenly being more careful that usual for he was now stalling for time because he wanted to look 'busy' so the two men who staggered through the now open airlock door weren't tempted to come talk to him. With his peripheral vision, Wash could tell that Jayne was thoroughly drunk where Mal only looked 'somewhat'.

Not that Wash would normally 'care', but the idea of Mal going off because Jayne wanted to 'celebrate' Mal's 'trashing' of Lady had left him with a sour taste in his mouth. The fact that Lady had told those in the Infirmary that the whole thing had been planned that way by her left the Pilot with an even bigger case of indigestion. All in all it left him counting the minutes until he and his wife locked themselves up tight in their cabin at which time he intended to wrap himself up tightly around her and not let go.

Out of the side of his eyes, Wash saw the two of them talk for a moment before Jayne, slapped Mal hard enough on the back to cause _Serenity's_ Captain to stumble slightly. The Merc then headed over to the ladder heading up into the forward companionway where hopefully he would head for him bunk.

Wash grimaced slightly when the Captain did not follow suit but turned and walked toward the back of the Cargo Bay as well as a certain Mr. Washburne.

Now Wash tried to hurry without making it too obvious—but it was also obvious to him that he was trapped in his own trap to which he might as well just surrender gracefully. Hopefully he would just have to nod to Mal as _Serenity's_ Captain went on past him back into the Lounge. _Maybe he's just going to the Infirmary to get a pain pill_ was the Pilot's semi-pleading thought.

"Hey—" Mal said in greeting as he walked up.

_So much for hope_ Wash thought. He nodded a reply to the greeting as he worked at getting the last of the cleaning stuff stowed away.

Mal stood as if patiently waiting while Wash did so. Wash noted that the injured side of his face looked like hell but that he was apparently dealing with any pain from it.

The Pilot finally closed the locker door, turning to face with Captain with a look of expectation.

Mal's face was level and serious.

As was his voice, "is everything okay on board?"

Wash raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that something you should be asking my wife?"

Mal had the good sense to look a little uncomfortable. "I'm not quite ready to get my skin stripped off by Zoe—I've had a bad enough day as it is."

Wash considered this a moment then nodded in understanding. "Are you okay?" the Pilot asked.

Mal nodded even as he looked away with something akin to embarrassment. "Thanks for askin," he said. He then looked back at Wash, the prior asked question still in his eyes.

The Pilot shrugged. "Everyone's as well as can be expected." He hesitated, not sure if Mal would really want to know about—

"Lady's—okay?" _Serenity's_ Captain asked. Wash could see a multitude of thoughts running behinds Mal's eyes.

"The Doc says she'll be fine."

Mal nodded at this.

He then stood there—

And continued to stand—

All the while most definitely _not_ looking at Wash—

Who finally had no choice but to ask—

"Something the matter?"

Mal took a deep breath—

"Kinda hard to ask." He then looked up at the Pilot. "Need your opinion on somethin."

Wash felt more than a little worried about that. Despite little incidents like being mutually tortured by Niska, Mal and he had never really spent much time one-on-one discussing 'opinions' on _any_ subject except something having to do with the ship. Not that Wash was afraid of offering his opinion during a gathering of the whole crew but he knew Mal really didn't share his feelings with too many other people other than his wife. He also recognized that despite what had happened with Niska, that he was still far out in left field as far as having level ground to base any closer personal relationship with _Serenity's_ Captain. With that in mind, he again he said, "wouldn't it be better to ask Zoe? I mean—"

Mal waved that off with a hand. "Look, I know we normally don't…do things like this but—" with that his eyes were on the Pilot, the look was very 'honest'. "As I said, your wife is more'n probably not very happy with me right now. I also don't need a sermon from the Shepherd or a lecture from the Doctor."

Wash couldn't help but snort with amusement. "So I'm all that's left?"

Mal nodded, "seems so."

Wash took a deep breath of his own, "okay. In that case; what can I do for you?"

Mal's eyes dropped again—a long moment passed—then his eyes came back up—

"Do I kick Lady offa the boat?"

Both of Wash's eyebrows went up. But he didn't reply—at least not yet.

Mal's eyes had gone back down, the tone of his voice was angry, confused, unsure, "Jayne was harpin on it real hard—course he would considerin the bad blood between them—and more than a part of me agrees 'cause of what she done to me." Mal stopped there; Wash was startled to see—to be _able_ to see the emotions behind Mal's eyes—something he had not often seen in the Captain in the way he was seeing them now.

Wash considered this. Given his own feeling from a moment before he could probably count on one hand with five fingers left over the number of times that he and Mal had had prior discussion like this. But again, Wash knew that when it came to the many 'group' discussions among those aboard _Serenity_ that his role had often been 'the only sane man' of the group—the one who would keep things calm and talk caution when something crazy was being planned. So he could only assume that Mal was interested in his 'cautious' view of the dilemma that was Lady.

So, in a 'cautious' tone, he stated, "I'm not gonna ask just what it was that she did. But given what Zoe said in the Dining Area at dinner, I'd guess that as far as Lady is concerned, you did somethin to her and she…replied in kind." Wash waited a beat, looking for a reaction from Mal regarding that statement; when he didn't get one he asked, "did or did not the two of you reach an understanding when you were on the Bridge? Is it still festering… for either or the both of you or is it done?"

Mal looked…unhappy but he grunted, "it's done. Neither of us is happy but—" he left it at that.

Wash snorted. "So then I guess that's your answer."

Mal looked at the Pilot, clearly not getting what Wash had just said.

Wash smiled. "Look, as far as I know, just the fact that you're dithering about this is your answer. As long as I've known you Mal, something you don't do is 'dither' when it comes to deciding how to do things. When you do…it's cause you know what it is that you want, but you're not sure if you should, because for one thing or another you can't be _certain_ what would really happen even though you're pretty certain of what that would be." Wash made a gesture with his hands talking in the ship and those aboard it. "You don't worry about yourself but you do about the rest of us and you don't want us to 'have to take a chance' on something you're not absolutely positive about—which is stupid considering that most of the time we're doing so anyway based on whatever it was that you did to get us into some crazy situation in the first place."

Mal considered this for a moment before looking at Wash with a less-than-happy face, "meanin that I already screwed things up when I took Lady on board in the first place."

Wash shook his head. "That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that you did something before—right or wrong—but most likely right, and now your second guessing it because it's not what you originally thought it was." Wash stopped for a moment, weighing several thoughts before, "Mal, it's really really obvious that you and Lady butted heads harder than anyone else you've done that with since I've known you. But considering who and what Lady is—or at least probably is, a Captain or Commander with lots and lots of experience in somebody's military—what did you expect? It would be impossible for you two _not_ to come into conflict at some point—" Wash hesitated at this moment before adding—

"Don't get mad at me for this Mal, but you've got to understand that you're not the…easiest man to deal with sometimes and that there are things that you do—I guess the best word would be instinctively—with people…like lying or at least not telling the truth about something those people might consider important." Wash waited a beat taking in the glare that Mal was giving him before adding, "I _know_ that you've done that to a whole bunch of people Mal—Badger is more than a good example not that I really give a rat about him but you _know_ that it's come back around to bite you more than once. Now replace the picture of Badger with Lady; he's a business man who might have to suck something up at the moment but will come around and shove the knife in your back sometime later. She's a woman who seems to _breathe_ the fact that she doesn't take any _goe se_ from anyone, not now, not ever and where do you end up?"

"You're not answerin the question," Mal growled.

Wash raised an eyebrow, "I think I am."

Mal continued to glower at the Pilot. Finally Wash shrugged. "Mal, you're an irresistible force that encountered Lady's immovable object. That's…upset you since you're use to getting your own way most of the time. Whatever she did to you it was in response to something you did to her and I'm guessing that _neither_ of you could be a poster child for measured restraint in the best of circumstances."

Wash then squared his shoulders looking straight at Mal. "Regardless, the fact that Lady's still on board—that you haven't already kicked her off—makes it clear that you don't intend too." Wash shook his head as if in wonder, "In all my time knowing you Mal I've never known you not to make a decision on something right then if it was something that needed deciding on. The fact that you haven't means to me that you're not going to kick Lady off but it also means that you're angry and grumpy and maybe embarrassed that she got you as well as she did—"

"Wash—" Mal started in a dangerous tone.

"Am I lying?" he asked waving his arms about in emphasis.

The glare was back in Mal's eyes but he didn't say anything.

Wash just returned to look without saying anything more.

So they just stood there looking at each other for long moment—

Wash sighed before saying, "let me try it this way."

Mal continued to look at him.

Wash looked right back. "Why is Jayne still on board?"

Mal blinked. "What?"

Wash looked very serious. "Why is a big, ugly mercenary who turned on his last crew for something as cheap and simple as his own bunk and cabin for God's sake—who has never made it a secret that he'll be gone just as soon as a 'better' offer come along—why is it that you keep him on?"

Mal opened his mouth—

Nothing came out of it.

"Let's not add," Wash went on, "that if Dobson had made a better offer that we might all be dead or in prison right now. Let's not add that all the rest of us know that _something_ happened when Jayne took Simon and River into the hospital on Ariel even if we don't know what that something was. Maybe Jayne got another offer and turned it down—which would be mighty nice of him—or maybe he just didn't have a chance to carry it through."

Wash's look now got very hard. "All _I_ know is that when I took off from Ariel, the ramp didn't come up, it stayed down with that big amber warning light glaring on my panel. Like any good pilot, I would want to know _why _before doing anything rash like closing the ramp by remote and as the monitoring camera just _happened_ to be working that time, I got an eyeful of Jayne hanging on for dear life out there while talkin to someone through the window."

Mal's glare was back but he said nothing.

"Now," Wash went on calmly, "from what I know, something hit Jayne in the back of his head cause that night the Doc had to stitch him up back there so maybe he was just delirious or something and locked himself out there." Wash smiled, "but someone let him back in—and he's been real quiet about taking any better deals recently."

Mal looked away.

Which didn't stop Wash for a moment. "Even if Jayne has gotten comfortable about being here, even if he likes us all now and really doesn't think about moving on or getting a better deal—you can't think for a second that if someone in the Feds or even one of the big companies—if they really made him a _big_ offer or if he got caught at some point and it looked like it was gonna be his death unless he could roll over like a big dog—"

Wash waited a beat before, "I can understand why you invited him over in the first place; him and his buddies had you and Zoe cold. You needed to get him or any one of them over to our side in order to get outta that scrape." Wash's look turned cold. "But you know as well as I do that there are others out here, other Ship Captains, that would do the same thing to get out of a tight spot and as soon as Jayne's guard was down they'd abandon him in a port somewhere."

Wash snorted and continued with, "after what almost happened with Dobson, you and I both know other Captains who wouldn't take any chances with their safety or security; at the first chance they'd put Jayne back out on that ramp and _left_ him there!"

Mal growled angrily. "I don't do that!"

Wash raised one eyebrow. "I know you don't. And that's why you aren't dumping Lady."

Mal stared at his Pilot.

Wash snorted again. "None of us know what it is that Lady did to you Mal. But we know it was personal. And we all know how you deal with 'personal'." Wash waited a moment before, "Whatever it was ticked you off Mal. But that's not what's causing your problem."

Mal let his look ask the question.

Wash gave him a grim smile. "You are—how Kaylee puts it—scary in certain ways for each of us on board. For Kaylee it's your temper. For the Doctor it's how you'll do _anything_ to keep flying regardless of what it might do to him or his sister. For the Shepherd—other than his fear for your eternal soul—it's how you'll do anything to _yourself_ to keep flying. Jayne _knows_ you can kick his behind from here to the Andromeda galaxy. You scare _me_ because some of my flying _doesn't_ scare you—in fact you make suggestions for things that aren't physically possible and _I_ scare me because I do those things for you. We all know that despite his bluster, Badger is terrified of you and that's why he's such an ass—that and he knows you drive a hard bargain."

Mal's glare was harder, "just what's the point of all this?"

Wash gave him a real smile. "Because simply put, Lady is not nor is she ever going to be scared of you—and that bothers you—your ego or something."

Mal just stared for a moment. "You're serious?"

Wash just looked at him.

Mal shook his head tiredly.

"You've met your match Mal" Wash told him with a slight smirk. "And as I said, that bothers you. It just might be that bruised ego which is keeping you from making that instant decisive decision about Lady that you normally would—just like the decision you made to take Lady aboard when we found her in the pod."

"I wanted to leave her! I was about to shoot her!" Mal hollered!

Wash's look was grim again. "If you had really wanted too, you'd of done it. In front of the Shepherd, in front of the Doctor, in front of Kaylee, you'd of shot her dead—unconscious, helpless and all—if you really thought you _had_ to do it to keep flying." The smile returned to the Pilots face. "You didn't do that. But what you did do was after Lady woke up, you invited her to become a member of your crew. Just like you invited Jayne, just like you invited Simon and River despite all the problems she had including stabbing Jayne. You took Lady in—and when you take someone in Captain Reynolds you don't kick them out unless they actually manage to betray you and even then you would wait until you were positive with proof and it wasn't just a mistake or a setup on somebody's else's part. _That's _why you haven't kicked out Jayne even though he's a potential threat that could stab any and all of us in the back without warning. _That's _why you haven't kicked out Simon and River even though the whole humping Alliance is looking for them. And that's why you don't want to kick Lady off."

The smile left Wash's face and his look was understanding. "But you're hesitating because your mad and maybe embarrassed (Mal was glaring again). Jayne, Simon and River involve general threats that would come at us from outside of the boat. Lady is different; she did something personal to you, got through your armor (the glare got worse)—"

Wash held up a warding hand. "Tell me I'm wrong then. The point is that she got you and I guess you got her and the both of you are sore about it but if my guess is right part of the reason you're so mad about it is that it was so easy for her to get you however she did it and she did it in a way where she was the one calling the shots and running the show." He waved his arms around again. "Hell, Mal, she ran the show with the rest of us dancing to her tune in getting us to do the 'death' thing. But to us it's just another example of how good she is with everything she does even if it also shows that she can be as ruthless as hell along with being dangerous—"

Wash then gave Mal a hard look. "You know that the same can be said for you. So I guess the rest of us can say that we all are used to living with someone like that so we're not really bent out of shape over it. But because you two seem so alike regarding 'ruthless' and 'dangerous', what happened bent you ego—"

"Enough—" Mal growled.

Which completely confirmed to Wash that his guesses had been right.

"The point is," Wash went on undeterred, "is that with Lady what's going on is personal whereas it's not with Jayne and the Tam's. And that's where you're having a problem because you know your thinking about kicking her off it's only because your angry and you really _don't_ want to do it that way."

Mal stood and steamed for a minute. Wash gave him that minute before—

"None of us know and the fact is that none of us care what happened between you two other than the fact that we're worried about you both. As I said before, we know how you take personal and it seems as if Lady's the same way. But you told me a minute ago that it's done between the two of you even if there's still hard feelings. I think that means that you two will get beyond it given time. I mean if Lady was willing to do what she did, let herself get hurt like that just to buffalo Jayne—"

"She told you that?" Mal asked, wonder on his face.

Wash's face fell, "oopps!"

A long quiet moment passed with far too many thoughts to count crossing Mal's face. Finally he blew out a tired breath looking away from the Pilot. A moment later he muttered, "whatever." His eyes then slid to give Wash a sideways look, "I'm not sure that I'm even close with agreein with what you're sayin but it's the least I can do to say thanks for listenin."

Wash simply nodded, his face still red from his gaff.

Mal then took a another deep breath before saying, "well, I best get some sleep." He turned around to head to the main gangway. "It's been a hell of a day."

Wash snorted. "I guess you could say that."

Mal stopped, looking back over his shoulder, a bewildered look on his face. "You don't know the half of it," he told the Pilot. "Jayne wanted to buy me a whole round of drinks for takin care of Lady but he had to ask for his pay from _me_ before he could do it."

_Don't make a sound Wash—DO NOT LAUGH_!

"Yeah, that'd be hard," is what the Pilot managed to say.

Mal waved a hand in acknowledgement as he headed toward the gangway.

* * *

A/N: Wanted to say sorry about the delay in getting this chapter up but I was on vacation for a period of time visiting the lovely (and wet) Pacific Northwest where my wife and I Lewis & Clarked ourselves to death. But while there a couple of changes to this chapter which suggested themselves to me while up there and as I do not log into public Wi-Fi's, the changes to this chapter and its subsequent posting had to wait until I got home. So I hope that all who read enjoy.

Only two chapters left after this one to Book One. As it winds down I would hope that a few of you might give me some opinions as to how it is going. Any input would be appreciated.

Until Then

I Will Remain

Your Humble and Devoted Servant

The Wise Duck


	33. Reflection

Thirty Three – Reflection

* * *

When Mal woke in the morning, he wasn't sure what hurt worse; his ankle which was swollen and stiff, his wrist which had turned a nice shade of black/blue (also swollen/stiff), his face which was once again bruised and battered for the third or fourth time in recent memory, his head from the various pains and wounds along with the mix of alcohol Jayne had offered up to him—

Or—from what Lady had forcefully shoved through his head—

The prior day really had been a hell of a day.

And now in the 'morning light' of his cabin, it wasn't much better. But at least he understood the 'why' of that. He hadn't had much of a chance to get his mind around everything that had happened. Now in that 'light' he had to face it—or at least admit that it was there even if he put off actually having to mentally deal with it.

In a way, Jayne literally dragging him out of the boat to 'celebrate' had probably been a good thing. Mal was hopeful that the breathing space offered by that time had given everybody else in his crew a chance to let the raw edges soothe a little. Not that being in a bar with a loudmouthed Mercenary who wanted to 'celebrate' the fact that his Captain had finally come to his senses and taken care of a problem that had been allowed to fester far too long was really a good place after what had happened on the Bridge. As the Merc had already been more than a half shade to the wind when he had dragged Mal off, it hadn't been long until Jayne had been happy talking about plans and ways of 'keeping Lady in her place although it would be better if her rear end was just kicked off anyway'. Fact was, like he had told Wash, Jayne had talked up a storm about it—all without the slightest clue that after the first few minutes Mal hadn't heard a single word.

Which was fine because Mal knew without listening everything that Jayne was saying and meaning. So he didn't have to listen. What the Captain of _Serenity _did have to do was get his own mind right and that needed time and thought. The time in the bar gave him the opportunity to somewhat start the process. Much of what was inside of Mal was still too raw for him to look at even half of the things that had happened between him and Lady, but the time with a drink in his hand as well as his talk with Wash had allowed Mal to at maybe get a few of his ghosts somewhat settled.

But it was now morning and there were things to do so he drug his battered tired carcass out of his bunk—

That was as far as he got.

He sat on the edge of his bunk, staring at the deck in front of him. He knew that his crew was out there waiting for him. Despite the fact that Lady had apparently interceded on his behalf—

He had to—maybe the word was be grateful—that Lady hadn't stirred the fire any further. He wanted to admit a little amazement due to what Wash had said about her giving the others a good word for him but in the morning light he kind of accepted it as a part of Lady's strange concept (to him at least) of honor—

Not that he expected that good word to hold much water with Zoe or Kaylee or Inara.

But it did make it seem as if Lady really was willing to let things move on despite the bad blood he knew they both still had. After everything he had learned about the woman, Mal had to maybe guess that her sense of 'fair play' was similar to his—that is that any concept of such 'fair play' was well wrapped inside the little nasty streak that resided inside of Mal—a streak that Lady might have as well even if it wasn't as visible to the rest of the Verse as his was.

Be that as it may, Mal knew that his mean streak could cause him to poke people who _really_ annoyed him with sharp pointy swords—multiple times—even though they were helplessly down on the ground before him. He wondered if Lady would kick someone when they were down if they were someone who really pissed her off. That she had taken pains _not_ to do it to him might be intentional so she wasn't made 'homeless' by being kicked off the boat. But it also might be that 'honor' that she seemed to be willing to carry to such extremes. Regardless, Mal also sensed that whatever the reason, the both of them would, when whatever it was was 'over', that the both of them were able to walk away without looking back considering the matter 'closed'…unless the other party tried to open it up again by maybe moving to shoot into the back.

But still, despite whatever it was that Lady had said to them, he didn't expect the reactions of his people to be much in the way of forgiving. Mal knew and accepted moments like this being that they seemed to happen one way or another all too often. He couldn't count how many such times he'd had with his crew—let alone some of his other 'moments' going all the way back to the Browncoats—moments when he had to face the men and woman in his unit with bad news or a rough assignment knowing full well what their reactions would be.

This time however there was a new little twist to it. One that he hadn't really encountered before.

Wash had been exactly right. Even if he was almost as angry at Lady as he'd ever been at the Alliance—he couldn't kick the woman off for that reason alone. Despite his not really understanding her point of view regarding her husband, he did understand and could identify with her passion on the subject when placed in comparison against his own feelings toward the Browncoats. He knew how angry he could get when he was lied too—he readily admitted his own double-standard regarding being lied too against his lying to someone else—and now he saw a like feeling inside of Lady. Only hers was more so being that she apparently didn't lie unless she was…forced to do so by unusual circumstances—such as being 'undercover'.

_That_ didn't make much sense to him. _Everybody_ lied—and unless Lady was lying about lying—

Somehow he _knew_ that wasn't true. The woman seemed to ooze integrity. Which was maybe part of his problem with her—because inside he felt that people that honest were either hopelessly idealistic and therefore cannon fodder just waiting for someone to kill them (and take how many others with them) or they had some other 'righteous agenda'. Because of that, Mal's instincts actually trusted liars more than 'honest folk' simply because they could be trusted to be untrustworthy and were therefore more predictable. As a highly practiced and proficient liar himself he—

Well—that really wasn't true either. Mal had _never_ lied to his Browncoats or to the crew of _Serenity _about the really _important_ things. The rest of his lies to those two special groups were—mostly harmless and—expected of him—

—because everyone lied.

So…where did that leave him as far as his current problem?

Unfortunately he seemed to already know the answer—he just had to make himself acknowledge it.

Wash had hit it on the head. Mal's feelings toward those in his crew were not always logical or intelligent—but they were the bedrock of what remained of himself. As a part of that Mal could mentally looked back into the past as see—

River had once gone crazy and slashed Jayne with a knife. That incident had been the worst of a number of things with the young girl that were building in the wrong direction. Rather than boot both her and her brother (who Mal knew was not nor would ever be a real friend of his for more than one reason), they had worked out what had happened and eventually got everything pretty much square away (it seemed). Also in balance, River and Simon were and would continue to be magnets for trouble like Early—but as River had taken that situation well in hand without the help of others, Mal was able to accept things as they were. Ultimately he'd acknowledged the Tam siblings as 'crew' and had told Simon as such.

Jayne?

Jayne had gone after Simon and River after they were under his protection. The only reason why Jayne was still alive after that was because the Merc had also been 'crew'. As Wash had correctly observed, other captains would have just ejected Jayne and walked away without another look. Mal had gotten Jayne to confess to what he had done and had forced what appeared to be genuine remorse out of the Merc. Then, he'd let the Merc off with a dangerous warning.

He'd done that because the Merc had been crew—

He'd invited Lady to become crew—

If he'd known that Lady appeared to be his equal in far too many ways for him to currently contemplate—would he have still given her the invitation?

Not that it mattered. He had…so like it or not she was now part of his crew. Wash had been right. That granted her the same things that he gave Jayne and River. Even if she—like Jayne had that one time—crossed his line in the sand.

She had gone after him personally—invaded his space and his head.

But unlike Jayne—

Or River—

Or Simon—

Or even the Shepherd—

Unlike any of those—more so than even Zoe—it appeared that in many ways and means Lady was his equal—

With everything that _that_ could mean—?

Could he live with a person like that on his boat?

Would she be a constant threat to him and the rest of those on board?

Like River and Simon with the bounty on their heads?

Like Jayne and his basic underlying untrustworthiness?

Like the Shepherd—and all his mysterious knowledge and information along with an equally unknown/apparently formidable ability to fight?

Somehow—Mal didn't think so.

How exactly did Lady say it on the Bridge all those months ago?

_You'll not have any problem with me toward your ship and crew. You have my word._

Which meant to him that while Lady might—and had had—a problem toward him personally, she had given her word that she would never do something similar toward the boat or the rest of those aboard her.

And now, having a better grasp of her ridiculous sense of 'honor' and 'integrity' Mal found himself having to believe that that she really meant that and would stick by it.

So—she was only a threat to him. Which she clearly demonstrated when she came into his space and after his head…with a directness and ferocity which Mal recognized in few others.

It was almost a little humorous to him, having someone like _that_ around he could live with. In that way she was safer to have aboard than either Jayne or River despite the fact that the Fed's were after her. He didn't have to worry about her going _to_ the Feds nor did he have to worry about her suddenly going crazy because she was an unstable reader. The fact that he could kinda/sorta see parts of his own self in how Lady acted allowed him to at least have a familiar feeling toward her where before everything about her had been dark and unknown.

And given all the stuff she had spouted off about regarding 'honor'.

She had given her word in regards to the ship and the crew. With sudden insight he wondered if it was that 'given word' that had kept her from kicking Jayne's behind despite the abuse the Merc heaped upon her over the last several months. She had promised not in interfere with the crew—now with that insight, he had to believe that was the cause.

But—he personally still had to be…carful.

He wasn't a part of that 'given word'.

And what Zoe had said to him—or at least what she was going to say to him once she got a hold of him—he certainly hadn't been careful. He'd basically picked a fight with Lady over their differences in beliefs over such hazy things as honor and oaths and such then hit a sore spot (obviously a really sore spot) by keeping the information about her husband from her.

Lady'd come right after him—just as he would have done if their places had been reversed and Browncoats honor had been called into question.

And again, like him, she hadn't pulled any punches.

But her methods—the _way_ she had done it. There the two of them differed. He'd of just beaten such an offender into a pulp if not to death if the offense had been serious enough.

She had come into his space and after his head!

She had taken all his control away from him.

She had demanded of him that he look outside of his own admittedly narrow experience.

She had asked that he at least try to recognize that others—including her—someone who was not nor had never been a Browncoat—had at least survived trauma very similar to his own.

After their confrontation on the Bridge, Mal knew that much of his anger at her was due to how she had done all that to him. Again he knew that it was his own double standard staring him in the face. Just as he had taken Jayne down with a wrench after Arial only to tell the Merc when he had him locked out on the ramp—

_The next time you decide to stab me in the back…have the guts to do it to my face!_

Lady had 'smacked him with the wrench' by pulling the 'dead' stunt on him. But unlike what he had done to Jayne, instead of being separated by a space tight hatch and talking via a window and walkie-talkies, Lady had had the guts to get right into his face and had done so without hesitation.

She'd even _allowed_ him to kick the _geo se_ out of her—

For a minute anyway—

However angry he was with what she had done to him, he had to respect her for that. She really did walk the walk and talk the talk.

Education and enlightenment she had called it.

He neither wanted or appreciated either. But if he was going to be true to his word and at least try to see if from her point of view—then he could understand it—even if he didn't like it nor would he ever do so.

So—she would stay on the boat. Stay a part of his crew.

So now—where would the two of them go from here? Could Mal really deal with the fact that someone like her—possibly his equal—was on board. Did he have to anticipate problems down the road given what Lady had said about things still unknown that could 'set her off'?

If anything, now he knew that her promise about not affecting the boat or the rest of the crew would hold good. So he only had to worry about him setting her off or—

A very weak smile came to Mal's lips as he contemplated what would happen if say, Badger and Lady got into it over something. He had no doubt what the outcome would be but he'd have to be ready to shield the boat and the others from the collateral damage.

So—what did that leave?

He might as well be a man and face it.

That maybe Lady was kinda mostly sorta his equal even if—

There were the _strange_ things about her that he still had trouble getting his mind wrapped around. Those old thoughts and feelings were now even worse given all the 'personal history' that Lady had remembered during their confrontation. When all of that was added to his pool of knowledge—

Mal dropped his head in his hands trying very hard to get it into an order that made sense to him. The problem was that there was just too much in what Lady had said that seemed…abnormal to him.

Like her mind being 'joined' with her husband—his whatever being put inside of her brain to 'anchor' her feelings and such.

Mal _knew_ that all that playing around inside of her head by shrinkers and God knew who else—no wonder her brain—and all her memories with it—went down the drain. He just knew that such things should have driven anyone crazy. He had to wonder if the reason why she lost her memory was that her brain was fighting back in order to stay sane!

But—for her to put up with anything like that—she either was completely crazy—as mad as a rabid dog or—

She really was the focused and dedicated professional that she said she was. Just like Zoe who was a professional career soldier before becoming a Browncoat. But Lady seemed to have more training and _lots_ more experience than even what his First Mate had had when she had deserted the Alliance for the Browncoats.

And if Lady was to be believed, she was so focused and dedicated that it almost killed her.

Mal brought his hands down, balling them into a combined fist upon which he rested the front of his lips/jaw. He had to wonder if that was another thing that contributed to the two of them being somewhat equal. Her alleged dedication because of all those 'oaths' put against his do-or-die dedication to the Browncoats.

Lady had taken that and had 'slapped' him in the face with it. She did it to get him to see that his stubborn refusal to give in—to stop being an Independent—might be slowly killing him. She hadn't said so directly but he had to wonder if she meant because he wouldn't change and admit that the Alliance had won—after all she had admitted 'defeat' how many times—

His face grew hard!

Because _that_ wasn't going to change no matter how she talked about it. Mal Reynolds was never going to accept who 'won'—

Because if he did, it would mean admitting that all those Browncoats lost their lives for nothing!

_That_ he would never do.

_That _was why he was an Independent—because it was all he had left.

_That_ was where they were different. That was where they were not equal.

There Lady apparently had something he didn't have. Apparently Lady had something else out there—apparently her husband and maybe a daughter of some kind. And from everything she had said, despite how _fu lan de_ her life as a Mercenary had been, she had been able to take all that dedication and funnel it into whatever it was that her husband was trying to do.

It was kind of like how he had funneled everything left in him after Serenity Valley into his boat and those aboard her.

But she had called him out on that—trying to get him to see how the two of them might be alike—

And he had tried to choke her for it.

At which time she took him out—veteran Browncoat that he was—like a five-year old child.

At some point, Mal might have to wonder just how long it had been since he had been that stupid—he knew that when she had her chance that Zoe was going to pillar him because of it. But he also knew that being stubborn and bullheaded and stupid when it came to things like that was all that was left to him after the war.

And if he would admit it, maybe he should just up and admit that, like the relationship he saw between his First Mate and his Pilot; if Lady had a similar relationship with her husband—

If maybe—just maybe—he might—

Then maybe he could realistically admit to himself that in several ways, Lady just might be more than his equal, that she really might be better than him—

And the thing that galled him about that thought was the fact that in the day-to-day scheme of things, that Lady didn't seem to care a _dao mei de_ about the fact that she was his equal let alone being superior in anything.

Was it that quiet acceptance of just who and what she was (those parts that had come back to her at least) one of the main things that made Mal wonder about her. He was use to it in Zoe—it was a part of her rock-solid existence—but Mal had always considered his former corporal to be special—or at least as special as he felt that he himself was—

But like Zoe, Lady seemed to care _dao mei de_ about all her talents and abilities.

For the first time, Mal had to question just how much this bothered him. Did he think without thinking that with all her abilities and talents that Lady should have been acting _xuanyao_ like someone from the Feds? Did he think because she wasn't a Browncoat that she should have been someone like Simon had been when he first came aboard—a bit of a pompous dandy?

The reality of it was that during her entire time on board, Lady hadn't made a big deal out of anything; her ability to fight, her ability to cook, all of the talents with getting the shipboard chores done, her ability as an Engineering assistant to Kaylee. It was as if she had no ego—in anything except something with her husband of course—

Except Lady had directly and specifically 'bared' her ego to him and how it had almost killed her.

That thought really made Mal shake his head in confusion. Lady _had_ to be crazy because no one in their right mind would do such a thing in front of someone like him. Everyone knew that you kept it all in, you didn't talk to _anyone_ unless—it just didn't make any sense to him for her to do that.

Except—

Maybe only now, Mal suddenly wondered if maybe he and Lady really had come into contact on a level that he hadn't anticipated. In the reflection of the moment, Mal's mind wandered back to his first meeting with Lady in the Infirmary after she regained consciousness—about how he had reacted to her as a fellow soldier—

It really seemed—if she was to be believed—that she had been one.

That—only now—kind of slapped him in the face. Because along with the little voice that had told him to hold onto her after what had happened with the pod—the feeling—the _knowing_ that Lady had been—_was_ a solider only at this moment came through to him in a crystal clear fashion. It hadn't before because—

Because soldiers talked to each other about things like ego—and fear—and combat and what it did to you. As a corporal—then a sergeant—Mal had talked and listened to how many of his men and woman on the same subjects—he'd even had the conversation with a few young officers trying to find their way.

That sense within him—that Lady really had been a soldier—had he ever come to truly believe it?

Up to this moment the answer plainly was no.

And the reason why he'd never made that mental connection—really made that link despite all of the evidence both staring him in the face and rattling around between his ears—

Lady's claim that she was from somewhere else.

Which now in a strange way made some sense to him. If she had been a soldier; then Lady was unlike any soldier that Mal had ever heard of be it a Fed or Browncoat. Mal now saw that he had had passing thoughts without conscious realization that Lady could only be a soldier if she was from someplace else because she couldn't be one from his Verse.

And that was maybe the crux of it. Mal wouldn't admit that Lady was from outside of The Verse. And he couldn't do so because he couldn't even imagine there being anything outside of the Verse.

But—only now he saw just how much she was acting like a soldier—only another soldier would call him out on his ego—then bare her own to him. Only another soldier would get into his face, smack him hard to wake him up, go as far as to allow herself to be beaten in order to reach an understanding that would be important to the both of them.

Why couldn't he accept the fact that Lady was as much career military as Zoe—

The first thought that came to him—she didn't look like one.

The scars that Zoe and he both had were absent with Lady. The scars that Monty or any of the other Independents/ex-Browncoats Mal knew in the war were not visible. No one Mal had known or fought with had come out unscarred.

But Lady—what was it that Zoe had said when they were on Poseidon right after Lady had woken up—she looked like an executive doxy. But it wasn't just that. Mal knew there was something more and it had something to do with how he felt towards all that experience Lady said she had—

That kind of nudged the thought into the open for him.

Like the thing with the scars, more than a part of it was how Lady looked—how she looked like a doxy. Being so tall along with slender and having that long-long hair and those big—

Mal brought those thoughts to a screeching halt! Even if he was a male, he consciously suppressed his libido—especially considering what had happened the one time he had given into it in recent months—given how he and…someone else was still paying for the indiscretion with Nandi. So because of that, the last thing he wanted to do was take notice of the woman in Lady. He just had to remind himself that she was a 'married woman' who took her vows very seriously (perhaps too seriously in his opinion).

But if he was honest with himself, he had to have a point. To his own personal knowledge, the only 'soldiers' that looked like Lady were the ones in entertainment vids and teenage comic books. Any real soldier's who wanted to look like Lady would have to have really deep pockets to afford the expensive doctors who 'prettied' up the high classes that Mal so detested. He also knew that any ex-Browncoat worth their salt would never lose their scars considering what those wounds represented.

But Mal had seen Lady's ability to heal several times now. It even took the scars away from the injuries he seen her get with his own eyes. She was as tall as Zoe and he'd seen athletes as well muscled as she was. He'd ignore all that long hair—which was totally impractical for both a soldier (which was way Zoe had kept hers short and what she had, had been kept under wraps with a bandana] and a spacer—

He'd also completely ignore Lady's—chest.

Mal shook his head. He knew that really wasn't what was bothering him. But his musing on it had at last nudged the real reasons out into the open.

It wasn't the way or how Lady looked—it was just that she looked—

It was her…age, or more correctly her supposed age—and the fact that she didn't even come close to looking it.

Lady was sixty five?

She looked in her early thirties.

She'd been training or fighting for fifty years?

His gut clenched at the thought. If that was true, then there truly was a reason why Lady said that she understood Mal Reynolds. Even if it stuck in his craw that someone other than Zoe understood, if Lady really was that old and had been fighting for that long, then Mal was—and had been—just one of lord knew how many sergeants she had dealt with through the decades.

It that was true, Mal then had to believe—based on his own very recent experience—that Lady was—and had been—one of those officers who—unlike several of the officers Mal had been forced to serve under—actually had their act all tied up in one sock. If that was a given, then Mal had to also accept that she was one of those officers—given everything she had said about how she had to fight her 'masters' for training and support—that she didn't take any _bai chi_ from the higher ups as well.

Just like he hadn't whenever it got real bad in the Browncoats.

Which went to show just how easily she would go up against him despite him being 'the  
Captain'. All the deference and respect she had shown him over the last couple of months had gone right out the window when she believed she had a serious grievance against him—

He'd of done the same thing if their places had been reversed. It had been a hard lesson for him to learn considering how the higher ups in the Browncoats wanted him to deal with some of the incompetent or inexperienced officers who had 'led' his people during the war.

That sudden thought—actually stopped Mal in his mental tracks.

He sat for the longest time—staring at his worktable without really seeing it.

Finally Mal shook his head, snorting at his own stupidity.

All his talk of Lady being dangerous. Had he really not believed his own words? Now he had to wonder.

Now he saw that he had seen and recognized all the signs—had actually voiced them to the others and yet—

Now he realized that he had seen all those signs and indicators and yet had he just seen Lady as another mustang in the heard; strong and dangerous and something to be watched but not really a threat to him. Had it been that despite everything he had said about how dangerous she was that he didn't really believe that she could threaten any part of his world. Had that been a byproduct of that ego she had called him on?

He thought back to what he had told Jayne on the Bridge two nights before_—__I don't think she can—I know she can. I also think that there's a good chance that she can take me. Think 'bout that. What does that tell you?_ The truth of the matter was that despite his own words, he hadn't believed than…and the reason why was his deepest feelings

He _knew_ that he was the baddest thing to ever leave Shadow—

Tough, stubborn, ornery, a survivor, wounded multiple times in battle but always coming back for more. He knew that he hadn't lost the battle of Serenity Valley, others had! His company had won their fight!

What did all this mean at this moment?

That _had_ to mean that his ego told him that outside of an outright ambush even someone as dangerous as Lady could not touch him.

Even now, Mal had to wonder what would have happened if Lady had just met him head on without the 'death' thing pulled by part of his crew—

The problem was, now that he knew more of her history and had seen her naked anger unleashed, he had a pretty good idea of what the outcome would have been and it probably wouldn't have been pretty for Mrs. Reynolds little boy. He now had to admit what the one Drill Instructor had lectured about in Boot Camp—

_There's ALWAYS someone out there who is tougher than you are and that's why you shoot 'em at long range before they get in close enough to kick your behind over the mountain._

A 'self-deprecating' smile came to Mal's lips. He now believed that he was on the 'other side' of that 'mountain'. He had to admit that Lady was just as dangerous as everyone believed—and for his own well-being he would have to admit it as well. His thoughts went back to those moments right after she locked them into the Bridge, the thoughts he'd had regarding getting himself 'back up on top of the hill'. He'd believed during those moments that she was as dangerous as she was…but he was also certain of his 'own inevitable victory' over her despite the odds. That was the standard confidence and determination that carried him through every fight he'd been in since he was a teenager. What had happened was that his confidence and determination—along with his anger _and_ his ego had insulated him to just how outclassed he'd really been in getting that close to Lady.

It let him know that if it ever happened again, he would have to take her out with a long-range shot.

Not that that would happen. If he had learned anything from this event, was that if Lady had the time, she'd get all the bases covered. The woman's experience—

Mal looked down at the injured wrist musing on just how many ways Lady's experience showed. Everything from her low-key approach—how she worked when they were on a planet to keep in the shadows—staying out of sight because she was on the dodge—after all this time Simon and River didn't even try to keep a low profile. It was plain to him that she had done things like that more than a little bit—what had she said about working undercover—like back outside of that bar on Beylix after the fight when she blended in with the street even though her shoulder was torn up so bad.

Mal sighed tiredly. He might as well admit it. So much of things involving Lady didn't add up. Was the only explanation—

Was there really something else 'out there' beyond The Verse? He had told Lady that he may be believed that she was from somewhere within the dust clouds but—that had only been because he needed to say _something_ rather than an actual belief on his part.

He signed tiredly—he had thought Lady to be naïve. Was this a way in which he was being equally naïve—

Or just plain ugly-cuss stubborn?

If Lady was naïve about things in The Verse—didn't that say more than anything that she was someplace else? Was he being blind about that—thinking without thinking about it that she was either faking being naïve or that she was just stupid?

Like he could be stupid about certain things. Because in this case stupid was the same as being stubborn.

But in order for him to stop being stupid and/or stubborn about it—would mean that he would have to at least think about her—being from someplace else.

He wasn't sure if he could do that. The very thought was just too—alien to him.

But Wash believed it.

River was certain of it.

The Shepherd seemed to believe it or at least consider it a very real possibility.

Kaylee—wanted to believe it but was afraid of looking foolish.

Simon apparently didn't believe it.

Jayne certainly thought it was a crock.

Inara—Mal had to admit that he didn't have a clue there.

Zoe—seemed to be uncomfortably wondering about it. _That_ spoke volumes to him.

So…if it was true, where did he go from here?

And how if anything, did it change how he dealt with the lady in question?

Another tired sigh.

Because Mal knew that the answer would not just pop into his head. So he would be forced to deal with it as he had so many things since Serenity Valley.

Taking it day-by-day, dealing with it as it came to him. Keeping his eyes and ears open while being ready to either jump or duck as needed.

In other words, no different than any other day since his release from that Alliance rehabilitation camp. Which meant—

He'd take Lady the same way—one day at a time.

That fact more than anything else seemed to be the mitigating factor that allowed him to be able to see the whole situation for what it was—

Along with an all-enveloping sense of relief—

His little sense; that inner voice—hadn't been wrong about Lady.

Mal only now realized just how—unsettling and worrisome that had been to him. The relief he felt from the fact that his sixth sense about who and what Lady was, it hadn't failed him. He also couldn't deny that the sense still told him that he needed to keep Lady around for a while.

That relief almost—_almost_—made up for all the aches and pains in his body. But it also meant—

Mal's eyes at last focused on his worktable—or at least the clock there.

He wasn't too late if things on board the boat had returned to normal.

And getting things back to normal would probably be the best thing to do right now. With a groan he heaved himself up onto his feet and started to attempt to make himself presentable.

It was a short time later that he came through the hatch into the Dining Area—

Into an entire barrage of frosted glances. As everyone was there (except Inara who was still off somewhere) there were only two sets of eyes not looking at him with a 'less than happy' gaze. One of those was of course Jayne who smiled and hoisted his coffee cup in salute—the other eyes (or more correctly eye) didn't raise itself at all.

On the inside Mal winced at the sight of Lady. He knew that his own face was 'colorful' but one look at Lady—

A full sized gauze pad (held in place by a bandage wrapped around her forehead) was over the big wound above the eye which was swollen completely closed. The rest of her face was pretty much all black and purple, swollen out of shape—a condition even more accented by the fact that Mal noticed that there was no plate in front of Lady, she was 'eating her breakfast' though a straw from a large mug.

Everybody else was already at the table, it appeared that Zoe and Book has shared the preparation chores. That added to the fact that it appeared that they had started eating without him—

It was all Mal could do not to sigh as he came down the steps toward his seat. He knew that all those eyes were taking in the fairly substantial limp caused by the damage to his ankle and he was sure that it would be noticed that he hadn't shaved because of how sore the one side of his face was but he didn't expect any of them to jump up to offer to help him get his own food.

Once he had his plate and was seated, Mal found the situation was more than a little awkward. For the first time in his memory, it was Jayne who kept trying to get a conversation started and everybody else who sat without talking while they concentrated on their meals. Finally, in his apparently usual lack-of-a-clue, Jayne wondered aloud—

"Don't know what's the matter with you people. We've had arguments between—"

"Jayne," Mal warned in a no-nonsense tone, "what I said last night stands. Leave it be."

"Sure Mal sure," Jayne hastily agreed. He looked down to his plate, "was only tryin to kinda break the ice in here."

Mal didn't say anything about _that_ but the moment did give him the opportunity to get something else in.

"Wash, Kaylee," the two of them looked up at him, Kaylee's gaze was smoking, it was clear that despite whatever Lady had said in his defense that his Engineer was 'wet-hen' mad at him, "soon as we're done here, we're done here. Get us up and head us over to Meridian. Send a message to Inara letting her know that we made the shift and that we intend to head back toward the Boarder as soon as our business is done on Meridian and she's done with her...business."

Zoe was looking at him, "what do you intend to do with our payment?"

Mal looked back at her, "we're gonna go see the Fat Man and get him to buy it. That'll get us the fuel and consumables to get back to the Boarder with hopefully a hefty bit left over."

Zoe nodded at this, hesitated for a moment, then asked, "and if the Fat Man doesn't buy?"

And 'almost' smile came to Mal's lips. "I think he will. And at the same time we'll have a chance to find out if the Fat Man knows anything we need to know about."

Zoe 'almost' smiled back at the Captain as her feeling about the real reason why Mal would be going to see the Fat Man had been confirmed.

The rest of the meal continued on in silence until people started to get up, bus their dishes and leave for their various whatever's. Kaylee headed back toward the Engine Room without a look at her Captain. River walked out past him, Mal thought he could feel the temperature drop as she went by.

As he had been so late to the table he continued to work at his meal. The pain to the side of his face/jaw made him wish that he was taking the meal in the same manner as Lady because chewing _hurt_. But he concentrated on completing the task to the extent that when he finally finished he found that everybody had left—everybody that is except Lady who continued to sit quietly at the end opposite from him.

Mal was in the process of rising from his chair with his plates when the vibration of _Serenity's_ engines sweep through the Dining Area. He had just completed cleaning everything and was drying his hands on a towel as the deck shifted slightly under him signaling that they were airborne. He came out of the galley, glancing over to see Lady—who was now sitting back in her chair looking up out of the overhead windows as the sky visible outside started turning the deep blue that would all too quickly turn to The Black. Her hands were fiddling in her lap; Mal guessed that she was playing tying and untying the ends of her long hair again.

His jaw tightened a little—with her looking up like that he could see the marks on her throat where he had tried to choke her—

Even with him using all his strength she had ripped his hands off of her like—

And he had the pain/bruising in his wrist to prove it.

He shook his head to himself wondering—

That wondering didn't stop him from asking—

"You okay?"

Somehow he didn't have any trouble asking that question. It made him realize that even if there was a part of him that was still very furious with Lady over what she had done; his earlier thoughts—along with the realizations that had come to him during the actual argument—had allowed him to start moving past it. He now knew that he probably would never really 'like' Lady—she was just too different for a man who had based so much of his current being on just trying to get by without any fuss despite all the weird things the Verse kept throwing at him but—

"Yes," was her reply as her one good eye continued to look out of the upper windows.

Mal took that in for a moment, then started toward the forward hatch intending to go up to the Bridge to check in with Wash.

"To clarify some earlier information Captain—specifically from the episode I had here in the galley when I put the knife through my hand—my husband is the Master; the owner of our ships and the one who gives us direction as far as our mission."

Mal stopped—after a moment he turned and looked towards her. "That mission bein," he wondered, the curiosity in his tone genuine, "that fight you guys are havin against those big companies?"

She nodded at that.

"What's your job?" he asked.

Her eye came down to look at him. "All that has come back to me is that I fight for him. The how—in what form or capacity within that has not returned."

Mal considered this a moment, then looked at her, "can I ask you somethin?"

Without hesitation Lady give him an affirming nod.

"You talked quite a bit 'bout all the hypnosis and stuff. Is it possible that's what's screwin up your memories? All those...triggers and programin?"

Lady looked at him for a long moment before replying, "I can only guess that that might be an accurate assumption." Her eyes dropped down to the table. "I'm not positive of that however. Something tells me that it's not supposed to work that way. But without any further returns to my memory I can't come up with an alternate scenario." She then looked back up at him, a thoughtful look on her face. "Are you perhaps thinking that there might be something else involved as well?" Her face narrowed a moment before, "you're thinking about what I said regarding some kind of mental barrier existing within my mind. Something that has caused me to block my husband off more forcefully than the rest of my memories; a side effect—some kind of mental protection mechanism—from all the hypnosis and other mental conditioning which I have experienced in my life."

Mal allowed himself to look impressed. "Well—yeah—but I didn't remember it as well as all that."

Lady 'almost smiled'. "The triggers seemed to have worked. It appears that I was able to retain almost everything of the conversation that passed between us." She then looked back up at the windows which were now almost black. "But to try to answer your question Captain, I can only repeat that it might be an accurate assumption—but I really don't know for sure. For while I retain the memory of what we said to each other—the 'something's' that led to those statements about my mental status have faded. What remains is as I just said, a very strong impression that 'it's not supposed to work that way'. There may have been something else in the now-missing impressions specifically regarding my husband—and anything I might have done to—" she stopped taking in a tired sigh.

"Excuse me Captain. It's getting to the point where it's all starting to be a little overwhelming for me. I have not slept since the day before yesterday—if you call unconsciousness due to a minor head concussion sleep—and things are beginning to bog down within my mind to a ridiculous degree."

Mal looked at her questioningly.

She gave an almost amused snort back at him.

"I can stay awake in a fully operational mode for several days Captain. As you could imagine, that was very much a part of the Special Ops training and operations I told you about. But with all the emotions of the last couple of days, the attempts at meditation to clarify returning memories, flashes coming at a rate where it became very difficult to sort out individual impressions and far too many 'something's' for any one mind to handle, coupled with the raw edge of both of our angers—"

Mal could see in her eye that she accepted the responsibility for those 'angers'—

And that more than anything so far allowed him to take another step past things.

"Well," he stopped her, holding up one hand to enforce it, "Inara should be back on board by tomorrow night. Maybe she'll have something...plant or tea like that can help you sleep."

Lady almost managed a small smile at that. "I will hope so Captain. Thank you for the suggestion."

After another moment, Mal nodded toward her before turning and heading out the forward hatch.

To find Zoe waiting for him in the forward passageway.

There was no way to avoid it. They went into his cabin—

It lasted about two hours.

Other than the one thing that Lady indicated she wanted kept quiet—the thing about her being bonded to her husband's mind (not that he would expect Zoe to believe that part but you could never know), Mal didn't omit a thing.

As expected, Zoe understood all of it. She even empathized with how he had felt about someone from outside understanding what they had been through during the war but—

"How in your right mind could you think that she wasn't someone from bein in the trenches," Zoe chastised him at one point. "In fact I think you've used that term for her more than once and yet you really didn't believe it." Her eyes narrowed in annoyance. "And if you tell me it's because she looks like a Vid star I'm going to hurt you."

It went on from there for a little bit. But finally the two of them climbed up out of his cabin. He turned to his First Mate, "can you find some other containers to switch our payment into so it's not obvious where it came from?"

She thought a moment then nodded. "There's a couple of things that'll work fine." She gave him a look, "you don't want the Fat Man to know where the stuff came from."

Mal shrugged, "he'll probably figure it out anyway but we should make him work for it."

Zoe nodded her understanding then turned for the Cargo Bay.

Mal stood silently in the forward passageway for a long moment thinking—before making a decision that he really didn't want to make but which circumstances where forcing him to.

A minute later Wash looked back at the Bridge hatch as the Captain stepped through it—

"Things are nice and clean," he informed Mal who made the usual cursory glance at all the instruments. "Baring anything unusual, we should be touching down in a little over two hours."

Mal waited a moment until he was sure that Wash had nothing to add. He then moved around to the side of the pilot's console in order to look Wash in the eye.

"Would you mind tellin me," he told the Pilot in a very conversational tone, "everything that Lady has told you 'bout where she's from."

Wash's eyes got very big around.

* * *

"You need to get over it."

Simon looked over to the door of the Infirmary, startled by the sudden intrusion.

It was River and she was giving him a very pointed look.

His mind flapped about for a moment trying to both figure out what she was talking about—

And trying to come up with an appropriate reply because it was obvious what she was talking about.

However, his sister wasn't going to give him the chance.

"Lady's helping me Simon," River told him in a cool tone. "She's being no different than one of my teachers back when we were in school—the real school—before I went away. You're getting upset and testy isn't going to do anything other than make you sick—and maybe surly and moody which Kaylee wouldn't like one bit."

Simon felt his anger/embarrassment flash within him—

He saw River's eyes flash in response.

"I'm still sick," she told him flatly. "I don't think I'm ever going to be completely well—"

She hesitated a moment, her face/tone softening, "but I'm better than I was—and that's all thanks to you." She hesitated again, now clearly unsure, "but Simon, you can't do it all by yourself. Even when you were back in the hospital; how many others were working alongside you, some in parallel, some on different paths—"

"But I was ultimately responsible," Simon told his sister firmly even as he tried to wrestle his emotions under control. "Just as I'm ultimately responsible for you. Lady...admits that you're damaged and we...have no assurance other than her word that that she knows what she's doing."

"She had memories—" River started.

"Does she," he countered. His thoughts at that moment caused his sister to stop. She looked at him with an expression of not quite disbelief.

"River," he told her gently as he got to his feet to take a step toward her, "I'll admit that...even today after everything that has happened, that I find...psychic powers...mind reading...to boarder on the fantastic and unbelievable. If you weren't my sister—" he had to stop.

But River saw in within his mind and said it for him, "you wouldn't believe it. You would...refuse to believe it...because there is no medical science basis that you are aware of to support it."

After a moment, Simon nodded his reluctant acknowledgement of this admission.

"And because you _don't_ know," she continued on for him taking the knowledge directly from his mind, "you have to wonder—since it's obviously that I can read minds and therefore it must be true—whether Lady's mind might somehow be altered as mine is...but in a different way."

Simon nodded. "Maybe that's why her memories are all scattered," he said to River as he stepped up to her. "Or maybe—just maybe everything that's in there was 'put' in there for some reason." His eyes even more than his thoughts told River that he was thinking that Lady might be a trap for the two of them.

But River knew better. So she looked up at her brother, her eyes gazing right through his skull.

"You can't believe that she's from someplace else," she stated flatly.

Simon raised his hands in frustration. "Where else is there?"

River looked at him scornfully, "again you can't believe."

Simon shut his face down. He was taken back years—back before River had gone to the Academy—back to when they would have arguments about things they felt passionate about—well—passionate considering their ages at the time. However, if the argument was about a subject of which the two sibling's feelings were diametrically opposed—

Simon knew what he was facing at the moment. Which meant that he, the 'idiot child' that he was next to her, would be completely unable to offer a counterargument that would be able to sway her in the slightest.

He didn't get the chance—

River took a step back away from him. "Don't be angry Simon. You take care of me; you've always taken care of me. And you always will. But some things you can't do alone. That's all I'm asking—let Lady help."

Simon looked down at his sister. He didn't want to, but he forced himself to ask, "and what will happen if she helps you?"

River gave him just the smallest smile.

"Someday...I just might be able to take care of you."

With that, River turned around and walked away.

Leaving Simon to wonder—

* * *

A beep accompanied by a flashing light on her control panel and an explosion of text and diagrams on one of the display screens told Inara that the on-board computer had just come to the conclusion that her current flight path would carry her too close to a ship crossing the path ahead of her.

She wondered for just a moment but that was all because the closing vessel was displaying a beacon and transponder code which clearly meant that it wasn't a Reaver ship. But at the same time one could never be too cautious when flying through the _Qing Long_ system which was the hotbed of Reaver activity. As a lowly shuttle, her craft religiously stuck to the most heavily traveled routes under the theory that any Reaver would go after a bigger/larger ship, leaving a small, puny shuttle alone.

But then again, Reavers where not known for their logic in those types of things.

Inara muttered under her breath. If Mal hadn't moved to Meridian her return trip wouldn't have been as long meaning that she would have had less exposure to the possibility of such problems. She was also 'ticked' because _Serenity's_ shift had caused her to refuel the shuttle out of her personal funds in order to make the longer trip.

She planned on withholding a matching amount from her rent.

Her panel 'beeped' at her again causing her to reach out to her controls. Traveling on a marked and registered flight path meant that she had to obey the 'traffic' rules. As 'small/puny' shuttles were 'more maneuverable' than a larger ship, it was her who was expected to make any course corrections to avoid a close encounter—

As she made the correction she frowned. The oncoming ship was crossing the flight path ahead from her left to right. Which was unusual as any normal traffic should be passing straight down the 'traffic lane' rather than wandering from side to side. She queried her computer which responded with a playback from 'traffic control' of the ships prior path—

The 'track' showed that the ship had been zigzagging back and forth across the flight path going back as far as the local traffic control beacons could register.

_Are they searching for something_ she wondered? Although the shuttles sensors were basic, she could tell that the ship was almost the same size as _Serenity_ but a different configuration. Her shuttle wouldn't get close enough for a visual sighting but her guess was that the ship was some kind of light/fast hauler versus the medium freighter of the _Firefly_ series. _With that flight path, maybe their doing checks on the traffic control beacons for the Alliance._

If that was the case, she was glad that she could keep her distance from them. In fact she corrected her course a little more to open the distance up further—

* * *

Even a light/fast hauler had a cargo bay. This one however did not. Its outward appearance was just that—appearance. Where the cargo bay would have been was a sophisticated monitoring center with sensors so powerful that even at that distance, the shuttle currently trying to open its distance from them was clearly 'visible'. The compartments compliment of serious looking men noted the shuttles activities as well as its beacon, transponder, markings and all other necessary data. The fact that its transponder code was 'blank' without origin/parent vessel information was duly noted and recorded pending the possibility of another encounter somewhere in the future. Right now the ship had another mission.

The vessel had arrived in the _Qing Long_ system 'that morning' going immediately into its initial 'seeding'. Although the process would take weeks, eventually a select group of traffic control, navigation, communications, data satellites/markers/buoys in the system would have a parasite sensor attached to it set to look for, identify and if it passed within range of the parasites 'harpoon' gun, 'tag-for-surveillance' any and all _Firefly_ class ships that came through.

When one was looking for a needle in a haystack the size of The Verse, extreme patience and perseverance were required. For the crew of this vessel, their last successful fugitive search had taken just over three years of tenacity and painstaking follow-up work. Such factors where an accepted part of the job.

Things might go quicker if they could seed more than just a 'select' group of satellites and buoys. But even though their masters had placed the highest priority on this matter—going as far as ordering several teams to disengage from their current investigations—they still had to operate within a government budget. And considering that that budget—along with their very existence—was very much BLACK, funding was prioritized by bureaucrats instead of those actually conducting operations lest such expenditures become obvious to the 'civilian watchdog groups' that constantly harassed hard working government operations.

They all knew and accepted that such was the status quo. It was the price paid for the masses to blissfully go on about their lives without knowing of the dirty work that occurred in the cracks of society. The fact remained that they were on the hunt and they would get the job done no matter how long it took.

The motto of the Level 1 Special Corps—

_You can run and hide all you want. But we WILL find you—_

* * *

"Some good stuff Reynolds," the Fat Man in the top hat smoking the foul cigar gave the Captain of _Serenity_ his best smile. "Not as good as that last load of medical supplies you brought through a while back," the Fat Man added chuckling. "You must have gotten some of that stuff right outta the Core."

Mal halfway managed a genuine smile on his face before he answered man who knew everything there was to know going on in the _Qing Long_ system. "Well, we always try to supply the best," he said with only a trace of feeling.

The Fat Man then looked up at _Serenity's_ Captain with a twinkle in his eye. Unlike other fences/information peddlers like Badger, the Fat Man made his reputation by being both reasonable and friendly as long as he wasn't double crossed or placed into a position where he was meant to 'take the fall'. _That _kind of things got people quickly as dead as anything Badger had been able to do. The 'twinkle' turned into a grin as the Fat Man said, "this stuff almost looks like what Dyan has been trying to pedal for the last month. You sure that you brought this stuff in from out of the system?"

The same half smile was still on Mal's face. "Came straight in from Sophie."

The twinkle was still in the Fat Man's eye. Mal wasn't sure if that was good or bad. "Reports that I got was that the moment you set down on New Canaan, you and your Mate here (he made a including gesture at Zoe) got off of your ship carrying a suitcase and about a half an hour later, some guards escorted a wagon belonging to Dyan to your ship where your crew took two metal cases on board."

Mal gave a nod of his head. "That happened. I delivered a cargo for Dyan and he paid me. What he gave me I'm takin back toward the Core."

A smile almost came to the Fat Man's lips. He glanced at the items on the floor to the side of the room. "You took on two metal cases and you're givin me four wooden crates," he chuckled again with a shake of his head. He then looked at Mal, "Just what was in that little box you brought Dyan?"

"Couldn't say," Mal replied in his best poker face.

The Fat Man gave a knowing smile. "Bet it was some of that frilly girls' underwear that shrew of a wife of his makes him wear when she's havin her way with him."

Mal managed to show _absolutely_ no emotion.

The Fat Man sat upright. "Alright Reynolds, deal!"

Mal nodded. "Fine," and the two of them shook hands.

The Fat Man then relaxed, throwing his cigar into a bucket of water. He then gave Mal a genuine smile. "Now that you've managed to take me to the woodshed for Dyan's second hand medical supplies, is there anything else I can do for you Mal?"

Mal usually would have given the Fat Man a genuine smile of his own at this point...but he had other things on his mind.

"We've heard word," Mal nodded to Zoe as well, "that the Fed's have sent out the BI, Bureau Investigators to The Rim. You know anything 'bout that?"

The Fat Man nodded grimly. "Yeah, I've heard that a couple of them have been pokin their noses around. Their lookin for an aught-3 _Firefly_ in rust brown/gray colors." The Fat Man cocked his head to the side. "Course you know that both SIS and ASO ships have been thick all through here for a while. They lookin for you Mal?"

"Might be," Mal admitted.

The Fat Man nodded, appreciating Mal's honesty. "Can you tell me what you picked up or left behind?"

"Rather not if you don't mind," Mal told him.

The Fat Man looked at him for a moment before, "I heard 'bout that long-haired fightin girl you seemed to have picked up somewhere." He paused a moment before adding, "any relation to that Doctor and his sister you picked up way back."

"Don't know," was Mal's reply. The Fat Man knew many, many things. He was absolutely trustworthy in his way, he would die, he would allow his wife to die before he revealed any secrets to the Feds. But it was never clear what he actually knew or what he was just guessing about.

The Fat Man nodded. "Well, I ain't heard 'bout anything with the Doctor or his sister lately and the fightin girl is totally unknown to me. So I can't really help you out. The BI are being really close with their cards. They ain't lettin nothin out except the type of ship their lookin for." He paused for a moment before adding, "except that the aught 3 _firefly_ was seen around New Omaha." The Fat Man cocked his head. "Didn't I hear somethin about you making a hole in the lake on New Omaha with some of old Man Briscoe's dynamite?"

"We were fishin," was Mal's reply.

The Fat Man accepted this with a nod. He then looked at Mal, "what I'm guessin is that the BI are just beatin the brush at the moment to see what they can stir up. My latest information is that there's four teams out here workin in pairs so's they can't be many places at once. But they got twice that many SIS and ASO ships workin the traffic lanes and a bunch of marshals screwin around everywhere as well and those—" his tone died away into a mumble directed at the marshals. Finally he looked right at Mal telling him, "if I hear anything I think you need to know, it'll get to you through the network."

"Much obliged," Mal told them. Then both he and Zoe stepped forward to shake the Fat Man's hand before leaving the room.

"Come back tomorrow mornin for your payment," the Fat Man told them as they were walking out of the door. "My wife will have finished her baking by then."

Mal gave him a wave of acknowledgement.

"So now what?" Zoe asked as soon as they hit the street. She did notice that Mal seemed to look around a little more than usual when they did.

"Can't do much more than what we're doin now," was his reply. "Keep on the move, keep gettin the jobs." He nodded in the direction of the ship. "Even with the problems with Jayne, I still think its best that we keep Lady close to us." He faced back in the direction of the ship. "Cause I got a feelin that whenever she figures out just what she is, it's gonna be an eye opener."

"I'll agree with you there sir," was all Zoe said.

"Now let's hope that things start to get quiet and smooth," he said to the world in general as they headed back to the boat.

However, when he stepped down into the Lounge, wondering why Kaylee and River were standing so close to Lady in front of the couch—all three of them giving their Captain nervous/worried/concerned looks—

He found out when he cleared the side of the Infirmary which was when he saw someone standing with her arms crossed in barely suppressed fury—

"_Gos se,_" Mal managed to mutter at the sight of the Companion.

* * *

Greetings after long last. An apology for dropping off of the radar for a while; changes at work and involvement in other projects. Anyway I hope that you enjoy the chapter.

I will remain

Your humble and devoted servant

The Wise Duck


End file.
